


Were Happiness For Us, My Darling, We Never Would Have Met

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Evil Jill Valentine, F/M, Female Albert Wesker, Good Albert Wesker, Government Experimentation, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Infected Albert Wesker, Male Jill Valentine, Medical Experimentation, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Sexual Content, Torture, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: It's been three years, nearly to the day, since Alberta had tackled Julian Valentine out of the window of Spencer's mansion. Since his own stupidity has cost him his Captain, his partner . . . the love of his life. And even now, he's the only one that holds out hope she's still alive, even if that means Julian is as well.Those are the thoughts floating around in his mind when he touches down in Africa, meeting up with the first partner he's taken since she went down.Or; Julian (Jill) Valentine was Umbrella's implant in S.T.A.R.S. instead of Alberta (Albert) Wesker, but some genes are just too good for Umbrella to let go of, and Julian knows that of the two, his former Captain is certainly the better tool.
Relationships: Chris Redfield/Albert Wesker
Comments: 38
Kudos: 24





	1. S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team

Alberta Wesker was possibly the singlemost impressive person he'd ever met. 

Thirteen years his senior, by the time she came to S.T.A.R.S., she was more accomplished than he would be in a lifetime. Two independent PhD degrees in virology and biomechanics respectively as well as an engineering degree attained through her service with the Marines, where she'd been a saboteur and a spy. It must have felt like a step down to settle down in Raccoon City, even in a prestigious position such as the Captain of the brand new and illustrious S.T.A.R.S. unit. Even before he knew all of this about her, he knew she had to be a badass because she could cow that sexist asshole Irons by merely turning her attention on him. That was doubly impressive, since she wore blackout shades at all times, and Irons couldn't even be certain she _was_ looking at him. 

That blank, black gaze had certainly shut the office up more than once. 

Chris had been among the officers that had been recruited based on their former military experience, but the day he was supposed to come in for an interview, he got to see her dress down one of the senior officers she had passed over. 

"You're an idiot." She'd snapped, voice icing over the room. "You're a spitroasted pig who wants to play soldier, so caught up in your power trip you've convinced yourself that you're worthy of anything you desire merely because you desire it. The hostility you express to those under your care is exactly what disqualifies you, brandishing your uniform and your gun as though Raccoon should bow at your feet. If it were up to me - and you should be damned thankful it isn't - you wouldn't have a _badge_ let alone an assault rifle. The very reek of the breath you exhale disqualifies you, and it will be in your best interest that it's never pointed in my direction ever again."

He'd been hard-pressed to repress an impressed whistle - sue him, he liked his women strong and bossy - but the absolute freezing stillness in the room, emanating from her rigid posture and placid expression was more than enough to quell the desire to make any noise at all, lest he draw her attention. He'd not escaped her notice, however, because she turned to him as though nothing had ever happened. 

"Christopher Redfield, I assume?"

"Yessir."

Her lips twitched in what he hoped was good humour. "I'm Captain Alberta Wesker. Follow me and we'll begin your interview."

He'd not expected her to take him down to the range, but that's exactly what she'd done. She firedrilled him until his arms were sore, then she took him to the gym and commanded him to do increasingly arduous exercises. As much as he groaned under his breath when she told him to run another round of laps, he did as she told him until he physically couldn't. He was drenched in sweat, panting like a dog with shaking legs barely interested in supporting him. 

"I can't, Captain." He panted, barely able to breathe. A glance at the clock revealed he'd been with her for the better part of four hours. Good thing this was the only thing he wanted to do today, goddamn. "I can't do anymore right now."

She considered him for a moment. "Follow me to my office."

He managed a nod. "Just- Walk slow? My thighs are on fire."

She did smirk at him this time. "I think I can accommodate that."

She did walk slowly back to her office, three flights of stairs up from the gym. He wanted to die, tripping up on a couple of stairs near the top. He was grateful when she caught him, since they were concrete and he wasn't too keen on meeting them with his face if his arms were too unresponsive. She let him into the office, directing him to a chair he gratefully fell into. He jolted when she handed him two ice cold Gatorades, a protein bar and a bag of orange slices. 

"Drink one, eat, then drink the other." She instructed, sitting down on the other side of the desk. 

"Thanks." He managed, tearing the seal off the Gatorade and having to stop himself from just chugging it. He didn't want to throw it up, but it felt like he hadn't drunk in weeks. He was into the oranges when she spoke again. 

"Do you know what I was looking for, asking you to do all those things?"

He glanced up at her, but she was as impassive as ever. "No, sir."

"Physical resilience and ability can be trained and built upon. But a _mindset_ is much more difficult to influence. What I wanted from you wasn't a demonstration of your physical prowess, but of your willingness to _listen_ and _obey_. I was also interested in the way you approach your limitations, since it matters that you know what they are and how to deal with reaching them."

He nervously swallowed his orange. "Did I pass?"

"Yes, you did." She leaned forward, opening the other Gatorade for him. "You did everything I said to do, as I said to do it. You were also able to effectively and concisely communicate your limitations while you were at them."

He broke into a grin. "So I got the job?"

"Yes." She sat back in the chair, assessing him again. "Provided you maintain the level of competence you've displayed here."

"I won't disappoint you, Captain."

"Make sure not to." She pulled a stack of forms out from a drawer in her desk, setting them in front of him with a pen. "There's a couch behind you. If you feel the need, take a nap, then read and sign off on the hiring forms. Should you need me, I'll be down in the gym. If you don't recall how to get down there, ask any officer and tell them you work for me."

"Thanks."

She nodded, then stood and left the room.

And that was who she was when he _met_ her. 

In action, the impressive resume on her end was very much on display. He may have gawked at her on more than one occasion, since Julian and Barry wouldn't shut up about his 'crush' on their Captain. He insisted he was only appreciating her capability, but that had only resulted in more sniggers and innuendo. Not when Captain Wesker was in the room, mind. The one time Forest from Bravo had had the misfortune to mutter something about how he could understand what Chris found so fascinating about _watching her in action_ , her retribution was immediate and scathing. 

"Perhaps time spent scrubbing the grout in the bathroom will convince you to fill the void in your skull with something other than filth." She'd retorted, silencing the room. 

"C'mon, Captain." Forest tried. "It was just a joke."

"I was unaware that you consider me a _joke_." She replied, voice unnervingly calm. "Would the termination of your employment make you reconsider?"

Forest paled. "That's not what I meant-"

"Is it not?" She cocked a challenging eyebrow and he cowed. "The appropriate answer to my original proposal would have been _yessir._ Do you care to change your answer?"

"Yessir." Forest said immediately. "Yessir."

"Excellent. You're benched for the next month, and I expect all of the facilities to be spotless by the end of it."

He balked, opening his mouth as if to argue, but deflated and ducked his head. "Yessir."

"With any luck, you'll learn to keep your mouth shut."

So, yeah, any teasing about Chris' not-crush on Wesker was kept to when she was definitely out of earshot. Didn't stop it from getting back to her, though. 

"I understand there's an element of fascination you have with me." She said matter-of-factly when he sat down across from her. 

He flinched as though she'd struck him. "The team certainly seems to think so."

"What actions of yours lead them to these conclusions?"

"They just like to make fun of me. I respect you a lot, and you're so multi-talented, I get awed sometimes watching you work. They like to take it out of context, I guess. I promise, it doesn't interfere in my work."

"I should hope not. You're my second-in-command for Alpha team." 

He swallowed. "I know. I wouldn't do that to you - I wasn't kidding when I said I respect you. More than any senior officer I had in the air force."

"Clearly. You haven't been discharged for insubordination here." She smirked. "Yet, anyway."

He grinned back. "Do I look like Forest or Brad? I can keep my mouth closed."

She nodded. "Good. We're on the same page. You're dismissed, Redfield."

"Thank you, Captain."

He wasn't sure at what point his personal relationship with her went from respect and admiration to a simmering heat even she seemed to feel. Maybe it was the one-on-one sparring sessions Irons started them doing, how no one else was skilled enough to keep up with Wesker but him and Julian. He didn't know if her powerful thighs wrapping around his head during those spars, when she got the upper hand were enough to bring them closer together. Maybe it was when he'd have her almost pinned and she'd do some magic with her legs and iron core to twist their situations around, with her sitting on his lower back with her elbow on his neck. 

Maybe it was the first time he'd stayed late to do paperwork and walked into her office to drop it off only to realize that she was still there too. Maybe it was seeing the sharp, narrow blue of her eyes that had taken him in. Maybe it happened when he started to stay late just to make sure she actually _went home_ , bringing her coffee and food from the overnight cafe a couple of blocks down. Maybe it was the first time he'd gotten annoyed that she didn't take care of her body better, when she melted under his hands on her shoulders, all of that rigid tension that held her together falling away. Maybe it was the first time he'd had the balls to run his fingers through her long blonde hair and she closed her eyes without thinking about it, leaning back into the touch. Maybe it was all of it, maybe it was none of it. But it wasn't long before the Arklay Mansion Incident that he kissed her for the first time and asked her if she wanted to try, to see if they could be something. 

She'd said yes.

| | | 

Then they'd been sent on that fateful mission, and Julian had betrayed everything. Alberta had been the one to kill the Tyrant monster that Julian had unleashed, then fled from, and she was the one that dragged his ass out of the flames. She'd been the one to spot the smoke from Raccoon City, and she as the one that put two and two together. 

"Where did you learn to hotwire a car?" He asked, still covered in dirt and debris from the explosion and subsequent trek through the woods to reach the highway again. 

"Baghdad." She replied flatly, her sunglasses missing and the stress lines between her eyebrows visible. 

"Where are we going?"

"Away from Raccoon."

"Don't you think we should be looking for survivors?"

"There won't be any. Not once the government bombs it."

"Bombing?" He sat up. "You think they would?"

"If what happened up the mountain was even a fraction of what's happening in the city, it's entirely lost. They'll bomb it, if not nuke it. Umbrella had a facility under the police station and I'm fairly certain there was another under the Mansion."

"How did you know this?"

"I could the passages." She sighed. "Umbrella was licensed to have a lab in Raccoon, I saw the paperwork. But I'm fairly certain the extent of the labs was _not_ authorized. The connection to the precinct certainly wasn't, but then if Julian were a part of my squad-" She scowled fiercely. "Irons, that _fuck_."

He jolted; he'd never heard her swear. "Irons?"

"He must have been on their payroll too." She hissed. "He recommended Julian. _Fuck_. I should have seen it."

"The other recruits?"

"Contacts of mine in the military suggested a few names, like yours. Others I found from surrounding police departments, others were veteran officers. I should have put it together sooner."

"You're way faster than I am." He tried to reassure her. "I didn't even know about the lab, let alone the tunnels."

"I was a _spy_ , Chris." She deadpanned. "I _should_ have known."

"Should you have?" He took one of her hands, white-knuckling the steering wheel. "Isn't one of the perks of being a _police_ officer rather than a _military_ one that you don't have to look over your shoulder?"

"it means I've been neglecting my skills."

"No, it means you're human and you actually felt comfortable."

Those blue eyes could pierce anyone's soul. "I suppose so."

"There's no sense in going over what-ifs right now." He soothed. "What's done is done. Honestly, I don't think there's anything you could have done to prevent this even if you _had_ have known."

"I'm not so certain."

"Let's say you did, then. What would be your first steps?" 

"I'd have killed Irons and Valentine." She snapped, slamming her hand into the steering wheel, making him jump at the sudden, vicious action. "I'd have killed them, then lead Alpha and Bravo down into that fucking lab and killed everyone in there, from the scientists to the monsters." She grinned, but it was dark, ugly and hard. "Then, I'd probably got to a high-security federal prison where I'd live until I died."

"And what kind of difference do you think that honestly would have made? You don't think Umbrella would have had a response team for shit like that? That they wouldn't have had replacement scientists and security brought into clean the place long before you got testimony out in court? Do you think they wouldn't have found a way to kill you before that happened?"

"At least I would have _done_ something." She snapped, pulling over onto the side of the dark road. She leaned back in the seat, eyes closed and breathing deeply. "I would have been smarter than to lead my team into a trap. I would have _known_ what I was getting into. I would have saved lives, like I'm supposed to, or at least did my best to try. As it stands now, I've done none of those things. I'm running away from the city I was supposed to protect, with the only member of my team I can be sure is still alive."

"Alberta," He said seriously, turning her head to face him, "You're not responsible for this."

She met his gaze, and it broke his heart. She wasn't crying, because that wasn't something she did, but the resigned despair was something he'd never witnessed on her before. She'd lost, betrayed by someone she'd trusted and accepted - whose life she'd saved on more than one occasion - and it had left its mark on her soul. "It feels like I am."

"I know. But you're not. Everything that's happening here, tonight, that's happened to Raccoon and Arklay County, that's all on Umbrella. Everything they've done has lead to this moment, and you're not at fault for any of that. And you're not at fault for having survived it, either. We can track down Julian, and we can kill him. We might not be able to fix it, but we can take revenge for it. We just have to get somewhere safe, and recover."

She looked back out over the road, took a deep breath, then spoke again. "Your sister lives outside the city, yes?"

"Oh, Claire. Yeah, she does."

"Do you know your way there from here?"

"We're on Highway Twenty, I'm pretty sure. I can get us there. I also have a key to her apartment."

"Then perhaps its best if you take the wheel." She slid out of the car and they traded places. 

Once they were back up to speed, he glanced over at her, finding her falling asleep to the soothing motions of the vehicle. She definitely was a soldier - no better place to sleep than transit. 

"Do you have any family to call once we get to Claire's?" He asked. 

"No." She answered at a sleepy murmur, her customary drawl softened somewhat. "I've been alone since I was sixteen." She paused, thoughtful. "Well, even before that, I suppose. But no, I have no family."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It merely is, Chris." She murmured. "I'm glad you do."

 _God_ , Chris thought, _Claire is going to be so upset that I've not mentioned Alberta to her._

* * *

Claire always kept some clothes for Chris at her apartment, and he was never more grateful than when they arrived in the small hours of the morning, both caked in grime and in a stolen car. He knew Claire wouldn't have given it a second thought, lending Alberta some clothes (you know, since her house had been nuked), but Alberta was a woman dense with lean muscle who stood six feet tall. Claire was . . . not. 

"You can shower first." He offered, handing her a shirt and a pair of sweatpants from his own clothes. "I doubt you'll want to get back into your gear."

"Thank you." She replied mildly. "I'll be quick."

Ten minutes later, Alberta returned to the little spare room Claire kept for him, warm from the heat of the shower and carrying her filthy, but folded, tack gear. So far as he could tell, she wasn't wearing anything but the garments he'd given her. The shirt and pants were baggy, but much less so than if he'd given them to Claire. She looked soft in his clothes, with her wet hair curling around her face and not pushed back by a headset. It framed her face nicely, and he kind of wanted to kiss her. 

"There should still be plenty of hot water left for you." She said, putting down her gear on the floor near the door, where her boots were resting. 

"Thanks. I won't be long. Settle in - Claire keeps this room for me, so all the stuff in here is mine. Make yourself at home."

By the time he'd finished showering, she'd already crawled into bed, her hair pulled above the pillow, and was fast asleep. He chuckled, drying off his hair a little more, putting his own gear away with hers, then crawling into bed alongside her. 

Their relationship wasn't at the point where they'd had sex, even heavy petting. He'd not been to her place, nor her to his, and he'd never once seen her asleep. He was supremely grateful for the opportunity now, despite the circumstances. His only hope was that she didn't mind being cuddled, because he was terrible for doing that to bed partners. Claire had complained about it more than once, and only people who were chronically cold when they slept would share tents with him in the Forces. 

It took Claire the better part of two days to return home - she had gone to Raccoon to see him, as a surprise, _fuck_ \- but when she did manage to get back, she was safe and sound and whole. And, just as he expected, she was livid that he'd not called her to mention that he was in a relationship. 

"Uh, hi." Claire stopped short when she walked into her apartment, finding Alberta - dressed in new clothes she'd bought the day before, dark-wash jeans and a black and white quarter-sleeve shirt - sitting calmly on her couch, reading one of her books. 

Alberta stood. "Claire Redfield?"

"Yeah. How did you get in here?"

"Apologies for the intrusion into your home. Your brother brought me here."

"And where would this brother of mine be?"

"He's in the kitchen."

The towering blonde woman guided her back to her kitchen, where Chris was digging through her cupboards looking for a frying pan. She called his name and he smacked his head off the door, recoiling and hissing through his teeth. 

"Claire!" He beamed as soon as he laid eyes on her. He rushed over and wrapped her up in a tight hug. "I'm glad you're home. Where've you been?"

"I went to Raccoon City to visit you, because you never call." She hugged him back, taking comfort in his solid muscle. 

"You were-" Chris pulled back, immediately checking her over. 

"I met a rookie from the RPD, he helped me out. We escaped together before the bombing started. Some government forces found us and got us cleaned up and on our way home. Bad news though; the bike you got me for my birthday is totally trashed."

"I don't give a shit about the bike. I'll buy you a new one. I'm just so thankful you're okay." He hugged her again. 

"What about you? The rookie, Leon, was the only cop I could find. Alive, that is. Where the hell were you? You didn't get fired, did you?"

"We were deployed to investigate a private estate in the Arklay Mountains." Alberta replied. "We were in the mansion when Umbrella's labs under the city were compromised, and the firebombing campaign was already underway when we broke the treeline."

Claire pulled back from Chris' arms and pointed at Alberta. "Oh yeah, and who's this?"

"Oh! Claire, this is my Captain - former Captain, I guess - Alberta Wesker. Al, this is my younger sister, Claire."

"Wesker? The hardass?"

"The very same." Alberta inclined her head. "I apologize again for staying uninvited in your home."

"Pfft." Claire waved her off. "Don't worry about it. With the clusterfuck that happened in Raccoon, I'm just surprised all of S.T.A.R.S. isn't here."

Alberta didn't avert her eyes, but her expression fell into a polite mask, her vibrant blue eyes even sharper. 

"We don't know how much of S.T.A.R.S. survived, if anyone but us did." Chris said softly. 

"Oh shit." Claire's hand slapped over her mouth. "And as their Captain- Piss. I'm so sorry. For my words, and your loss."

"Thank you, but there's no need." Alberta said coolly. "The fault is mine, not yours."

"Al." He sighed. 

"You won't change my mind, Chris." She replied. 

"O-kay." Claire stepped between them. "How about we get emotional after Chris and I make lunch?"

Alberta bowed out gracefully. "I'll be in the living room."

As soon as the blonde was beyond hearing range (or just out of view, Chris knew Claire didn't care if this conversation was mortifying for him), Claire wheeled around on him. "You never told me Wesker was a fucking Amazonian goddess!"

He frowned. "What?"

"You have no idea how many lesbians I know who would beg to be at the other end of her with a strap-on." Claire threw her hands up in the air. "I mean, she's, what? Six feet tall? Solid shoulders, arms bigger than yours. Those long legs too, and real nice thighs. Not to mention a clean complexion and all that blonde hair."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure _you're_ not a lesbian?"

"Could be. I like dick too, though."

"Eugh, Claire, no, stop."

"What? You've got your squeeze sitting on my couch."

"She's not- Jesus Christ, Claire."

"You can't lie to me." She declared. "You've totally got the hots for her. And I am _so_ upset you didn't tell me."

"It didn't start that long ago." He admitted. "Maybe a couple of weeks back. We haven't done anything other than kiss, and then this happened-" He shook his head. "I don't even know if she'll stick around once she gets all the paperwork sorted out."

"Does she have any family? Any friends?"

"No family, and no friends that I know of."

"She'll be around." She said confidently. "But she's keeping to your room. There's no way I'm sharing with your Amazonian girlfriend."

"You're impossible."

She smiled sweetly, the ass. "My house, my rules."

"This is an apartment."

She punched him. 

Alberta did, in fact, stick around. She managed to secure an apartment not too far from Claire's through an old buddy from her army days, one that was both bigger and nicer than Claire's. And she offered to let Chris live with her. 

"Uh, yeah. Absolutely." He said, ignoring the sharp elbow Claire gave him. Alberta had only nodded shortly, handing him a key ring, his shiny new apartment key already attached. 

That night, after packing up the meagre belongings he'd acquired in the two months since Raccoon City, he'd been dropped off at his new apartment by Claire, who gave him a lascivious wink when he got out of her car. When he got to the apartment, he was floored by all the open space and massive window bays. 

"I know you said you got the penthouse, but damn." He whistled as he walked in, dropping his duffel bags by the door. 

"I'm glad you like it." Alberta answered, walking out from the kitchen. She was in a loose black shirt and slacks, barefoot, looking untenably soft and in place. God, Claire was right - she really did look like a goddess, highlighted by the warm glow of the setting sun, giving her skin a bronze sheen and making those narrow blue eyes of hers jump off her face like LEDs. 

Chris was oh so _wonderfully_ fucked. 

| | | 

The bay window in the bedroom was on Alberta's side of the bed, and it faced the morning sun. Chris had always wondered if Alberta was, in fact, superhuman, since she was always at the S.T.A.R.S. office hours before everyone else - including the janitor - but she was just one of those psychotic morning people. While it had been arguably the thing he hated most about working under her, he got to appreciate it now in his personal life, and while he'd also thought he'd hate the window waking him in the morning, he'd become very grateful for it in the weeks that had followed. 

One of the reasons he was grateful for it was happening on his lap. 

The cold dawn light is warming as it crests the horizon, and it ignites the sweat on her skin, casting her bronze hue in flame. The yellow of her hair is burning gold, sticking to her forehead and back, her head tossed back, arms propped up on his thighs. Her fingertips are likely going to leave bruises, since her grip is so strong, but he doesn't care. His own hands have a death grip on her hips, holding on for dear life more than helping or guiding her. She'd found an angle she liked and had been slowly grinding into it since the light first touched the walls of their bedroom. 

"Al, dear fucking god-" He bit out, eyes raking over her body. 

"Chriiiiiis~" She moaned back, doing some kind of roll with her abdomen that he felt shoot through his dick and up his spine. 

Her body was hard and coiled, all lean, strong muscle. Her breasts were small and firm, barely enough to fill his hands, but were terribly sensitive, and he loved to bite a her nipples and make her shudder under him. He could spend hours marking out the scars that littered her body, a surprising amount of bullet hole scars on her abdomen and thighs. Knife lacerations and fragmentation scarring were all over her arms, the palms of her hands visibly roughened and torn up. Surgical scars from having to reset the bones in her fingers were the worst to see, even though they were covered over a lot of the time by the gun calluses. He had some scars, but nowhere near the amount she did. 

She'd been uncharacteristically bashful to get naked in his presence the first time, and it had been a joy to get to take her apart, spending hours lavishing her body with all the attention it deserved. She wasn't shy like that anymore, perhaps even more demanding than what he anticipated, As evidenced by the fact that when she felt like it, she'd climb on top of him at the crack of dawn and wake him up with some truly incredible morning sex. 

This morning was like that, and he'd become a bit more of a morning person himself. 

"Al, Al please-" Her head rolled around enough to peek at him,, pleading below her, then she pushed off his thighs to drape herself over him. Her hands wound into his hair, rolling her body so she pressed her whole chest into his. 

Kissing her was like getting devoured, especially in these early morning romps. She was infectious, the hungry way she took control of his mouth, the way her thighs clamped around his hips, those dexterous hands putting him exactly where she wanted him to be and not allowing for any human error, and he wanted to be taken by her. Everything about her was just so perfect, her command infallible, and her strength unparalleled. He could do nothing more than hold onto her, beg her to give him more, more, more - as much as she was willing to. 

"I love you." He breathed out when she let him go long enough to leave a trail of bites down the column of his neck. "I love you so much, Alberta."

She slowed down, sitting up enough to meet his gaze. "You're mine, Christopher. I love you, and you're mine."

"All yours." He managed before she crushed her mouth to his again, letting him roll them over and put his body to work. 

| | | 

The BSAA was a culmination of years of work after Raccoon City that allowed Chris and Alberta to continue to chase Julian. He'd dropped off the map after the Arklay Mansion, and his trail had gone cold. They'd managed to find the location of one of Umbrella's former topmost scientists, Oswell E. Spencer, in a mansion off the Atlantic coast. Getting the warrant hadn't been hard, and the two of them couldn't have been antsier to get on their way. 

Only Chris and Alberta had gone in, finding the Spencer Mansion largely abandoned, save for a few staff members who fled from cleaning up the bodies of their coworkers when they arrived. They didn't stop to try and reassure those people, only pressed further into the mansion. At the top of the four-storey building, they found the doors to a gallery-style library, the only room in the house they hadn't yet checked for Spencer. 

When they entered the room, they found Julian over Spencer's corpse, and the fight was on. 

Something was wrong with Julian - different and unnatural - and he'd been quick to throw Chris aside first. Alberta had more luck holding her own against him, the sheer gap in their technical skill coming to the fore, but Julian threw her across the room too. 

"I'm always impressed anew every time we go at it, Captain." Julian smirked, almost at a leer. "It's a shame you chose the wrong partner."

Alberta didn't give him anything, even with her sunglasses knocked off her face, her headset askew. Only her eyes burned with her indignation. Julian chuckled, catching Chris' attack with his knife without any effort. Julian disarmed him, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off his feet, one fist set my his side. 

"Let's finish this, hmm?" Julian;s grin was cruel and cold. 

"No!" 

Chris didn't have time to comprehend it, but suddenly the pressure around his throat was gone and he was buffeted by the winds coming off the ocean through the broken window. His senses took a moment to come back online, with the blood rushing through his ears, but once they did he knew exactly what had happened. 

He rushed to the window, leaning over it to try and see, but the two of them were long gone. "ALBERTA!"

* * *

It's been three years, nearly to the day, since Alberta had tackled Julian Valentine out of the window of Spencer's mansion. Since his own stupidity has cost him his Captain, his partner . . . the love of his life. And even now, he's the only one that holds out hope she's still alive, even if that means Julian is as well. 

Those are the thoughts floating around in his mind when he touches down in Africa, meeting up with the first partner he's taken since she went down. 


	2. Kijuju, Africa

Sheva is nice enough, when he meets her. She's straightforward and level-headed, with a low-lying empathy that allows her to notice he's uncomfortable and intuitive enough to tell her not to mention it. He likes that about her the most, and he doesn't mind her company. 

_"Excellent form and powerful posture. She's good - she'll stay alive."_

He shakes Alberta's whisper from his mind and follows Sheva, who mercifully doesn't comment, through the small town of Kijuju. They're here to track down and capture or kill an arms dealer by the name of Irving, who's been peddling BOWs in the area to small-time warlords. It's likely enough to cause an incident that Barry _and_ Rebecca had pulled him aside and pleaded for him to go. 

The air is warm around him and cold where Alberta's heat should be. She would be boiling here, head to toe in black or deep navy, enough to radiate it onto him. She was too stubborn to admit she'd chosen poorly, or to submit herself to wearing clothes she didn't want to now that she wasn't mandated with a uniform. He could see her in his mind, making pointed eye-contact as she put a travel-size bottle of baby power in her tack belt's back pocket. She would smirk like hell at him though, having to admit he wished he could steal a pair of sunglasses from her. 

His chest tightens. 

As if that's the only reason he has to miss her. As if he doesn't miss _everything_ , from the way her hair would scatter over the pillows to how she looked with one of his shirts hanging off a shoulder, as if the gentle brush of her fingers along the back of his neck isn't something he would give his own life to feel just one more time. 

Just thinking about her makes the bright, dusty streets of Kijuju fall in on him, the broad expanse of his chest folding in on itself. 

He's not been able to let anything about her go, and he knows it's left Claire and Barry in an awkward position - the BSAA has declared her KIA, but there was never a body, not from Alberta or Julian. Everything of hers is just where she left it the morning they deployed, and Barry had joked that they're lucky Alberta was always tidy, since if she'd have left the place a mess, a mess it would have remained. He didn't deny it at the time, and he still doesn't now. All of her things are exactly where she kept them, the only thing that shows any wear is the once-full bottle of her favourite perfume - a surprisingly soft and airy floral scent, usually made warm and spicy by her body heat. He sprays her pillows and the shirt she stole most from him in. He's not been able to sleep without that scent for the last three years, and even on missions when he'd once pass out, he's a sleepless mess by the time he returns to base, having to pass out in their - _his_ \- apartment before they can debrief him. Claire always gets that sad look on her face when she sees him wearing Alberta's favourite shirt, like she can tell just by it's appearance that he's feeling low. He's not even informed the landlord that Alberta's not here, because it's still her name on all the bills that come in. 

He shakes himself out of his reverie when Sheva's getting patted down and she slaps the guard's hands away, staring the molester down with a solid confidence in her eyes come from fighting things a hell of a lot more depraved than him. The man lets them pass and thankfully doesn't bother to try and grope Chris. 

The BSAA's informant meets them and leads them to a meat packing facility, giving Chris the gear he'd needed smuggled in. He warns them about something called 'Uroboros' and takes his leave. 

It's not much longer after that, they find him being executed on a stand in the middle of the town's little square, on the run once more from a host of undead (maybe half-dead?) and still trying desperately to find this Irving asshole. They get directives to meet with Alpha Team for the takedown, but when they manage to get to the meeting spot, all that remains of Alpha Team is a smattering of bodies, tossed haphazardly around the room. There's only one survivor, who passes Chris a disk containing what Alpha had managed to figure out about the deal. Kirk, their op coordinator, tells them to head to the BSAA base, that there's a satellite computer in one of the trucks that they can use to send the info to HQ. 

The passage to the base is less than pleasant, but it's enough to keep Chris' mind off Alberta, despite Sheva's presence making him glad of having a partner again - he was never a fan of being alone. They somehow manage to get to the base, despite the grotesque mess of slick, oily tentacles that try to stop them, and get the info transmitted. HQ has little sympathy for the sacrifices of Alpha Team, and no regard for the potential deaths of him and Sheva - the mission stands. Sheva's rightfully indignant about it, even with the knowledge that Delta Team is supposed to be meeting them further ahead. 

_"Push me again, Command. See where it gets you_." He can hear Alberta growl into the radio. _"I expect a raise and two months paid vacation for this stunt. For Chris and I both."_

They push on anyway, and meet up with Delta Team, who instruct them to head to a mine not too far away where Irving is supposed to be. Their captain, Josh Stone, tells them that Delta will handle the rest of Kijuju, so long as Chris and Sheva manage to get Irving. He plugs the chip Stone gave him into his phone, opening up the info packet, struck dumb when one of the experiments listed near the top - Project:W13 Phase 2 - opens to an image of a blonde woman, suspended in some sort of stasis. 

"Alberta." He says, without thinking. The woman looks a hell of a lot like her, but the pictures aren't clear enough to make out defining features. For instance, if her head wasn't tilted to the left, he could tell you for sure if it was her based on whether or not she had the scar that bisected the end of her left eyebrow, from where a chunk of shattered glass had nearly cost her an eye the year before the Spencer Estate. But he also knows Alberta like the back of his hand, and he has to fight down the hope that threatens to choke him.

"Chris?" Sheva's voice snaps him back to the present, and with how often it's happened today, he's starting to think he's a liability on this mission. "Are you alright?"

"This picture, it's-" He stops himself, tries to think of a way to summarize the mountain of emotions roiling around in his chest, fails, then settles for something much more mediocre. "Forget it, it's nothing. Let's move out."

Sheva, bless her, doesn't say anything, and follows him as they begin the trip over to the mine. It doesn't take them long - Sheva knows the way - and they find Irving at the top of the mine, in one of the buildings meant for the management when the mine was still operational. Sheva hops smartly into position to open the door, Chris covering her. They bust it open with a shared nod. 

"Freeze!"

"Oh shit!" Irving's a weasel of a man in an equally skeevy suit that looks like he stole it off a yakuza in the Seventies. He sounds like someone forced the Boston and Long Island accents to have hate-sex, and despite Sheva's heated, passionate and profound annoyance with the fact he was ever allowed to breathe, Chris is just tired. He wants this over with. 

"Drop the weapon." He cuts in, and Irving points his gun at him now. 

"Or . . . How 'bout you drop yours?"

Chris is so done, watching this half-assed attempt of a human being wave a revolver - a fucking _revolver_ , where the fuck were they, New Mexico circa Clint Eastwood? - with undisguised disdain before there's the hollow rattle of a metal canister hitting the ground and gas starts pouring from it. Irving looks down at it between his feet like he's never seen anything like it before, startled and horrified, but both Chris and Sheva retreat from the smoke, fully aware that it may not be a simple smoke grenade. 

A masked and cloaked figure breaks through the window, pulling Irving along by his suit jacket as one might lift up a hissy cat by the scruff of their neck. 

"Haha, suckers!" Irving gloats, but the figure has no truck with him, tossing him out the window in barely restrained annoyance. The broken window allows the harmless smoke to clear, but by the time they make it over to the window, both the figure and Irving are gone. 

"Looks like Irving has a partner." Sheva hisses in disgust, but Chris is just a little disappointed he didn't consider that the arms dealer probably would, despite HQ's assurances. 

"there must be something in here he didn't want us to see." He gets up and goes over to the documents Irving was trying to either hide or take, and scans through them in the way Alberta taught him to selectively read witness reports - important details, odd words and certain descriptors that pop off the page. 

"What is it?" Sheva asks, leaning over his shoulder. 

There's a map at the bottom of the folder, and a couple of paper-clipped on pictures. Chris doesn't know where the hell this is, but Sheva's brow furrows. 

"The oil fields? That's in the marshlands."

With a grim frown, he takes responsibility and calls Stone, informing them that they lost Irving and are re-routing an another attempt to capture him. Stone tells them to return to him, that he'll send another body on Irving's tail. One of Stone's men meets them halfway back, picking them up in a truck. Halfway back, they get an update from HQ, informing them that Chris' intuition was right - it's just like Leon Kennedy's experience in Spain, the villagers of Kijuju are, indeed, infected with Las Plagas. Where Uroboros fits into that, no one has an answer. Only Irving will be able to tell them, and Chris is going to make sure he does. 

By the time they make it back to Kijuju, night has fallen, and the town is silent, save for their wheels crunching on gravel. There's bodies scattered everywhere, BSAA and townfolk alike. 

"What could have done this?" Sheva breathes, but Chris knows. As much as he hates it, he's been in this place a hundred times before. It wasn't called Kijuju, or necessarily in Africa, but he's been to this place. 

There's a rumble, deep in the ground, then the jeep they were just in goes flying. Some beast that looks like a stitched together troll crushes their driver with a step and roars at them. They manage to kill it with the turrets mounted on the back of the truck they came in on, but barely escape death themselves. Underneath one of the bodies scattered around, Sheva finds Josh Stone's dogtags, and Chris feels a horrible, deep pang of sympathy. Alberta's own from her time in the Marines are around his own neck, pressed tightly to his skin by his shirt. 

"You don't have to do this, Sheva. You can still back out." He offers, because he feels its only right. She's not used to seeing this kind of devastation, and it always strikes differently when it's your own home being destroyed. 

"What about you?" Sheva asks in return, finally breaking her silence on his odd behaviour.

Alberta's tags are always warm, because he never takes them off. "I've got a personal stake in this."

"A 'personal stake'?!" Sheva's voice edges on hysterical. "Chris, take a look around you! We should both get the hell out of here!"

"I'm not here just for this mission."

"What are you talking about?" She's talking to him like he's crazy, and maybe he is. 

He breathes out through his nose and winces, but he owes Sheva the truth. "A while ago, I got some intel that my old partner was still alive. At first, I didn't know what to think, but when I saw that data file from Delta Team, I knew for sure. Alberta is still alive."

Sheva, quite reasonably, looks completely floored and overwhelmed. "That woman in the data file?! Are you even sure it's the same person?!"

"We were partners. I'm sure."

He goes to walk away - he won't hold her here, it's not fair, and he can't in good conscience drag her into his personal business either, BSAA or not - but she calls out to him. "Wait! Chris, wait!"

He pauses, but doesn't stop, headed down to the small civilian dock where the marshes back onto the village. She's still following him, getting more determined with every step. 

"Chris, wait! I'm going with you!"

He does stop then, at the edge of the docks. "Are you sure about this?"

"These are _my_ people dying here!"

"A second ago, you were ready to cut and run."

Her face scrunches up in a mixture of shame and annoyance, but he knows this feeling. It's only human to feel fear and horror, and it's not unnatural to want to run from it, even when the right thing - the only thing - to do, is to fight. "I can't just turn my back and walk away."

He's not going to lie to her, to lead her on a mission with parameters she's not aware of. She's young, and new to the fight, and she's had enough surprises for today. "There are no more orders from here on in - it's just us."

"We are partners." She says, and her voice has softened, like she could even fathom what that word means to him. "To the end. Now let's get moving."

He appreciates her tenacity, her drive and her resilience - he's never truly been certain if he would have chosen this life for himself if not for S.T.A.R.S., for the Arklay Mansion Incident, for Alberta Wesker and her unbridled willingness to do battle. "Copy that."

They get onto one of the fan skimmers and take off into the swamp. 

| | | 

It's daybreak before Sheva manages to find her voice again, turning so he can hear her. 

"What happened to your partner?"

"Alberta and I were pursuing a man named Julian Valentine." He takes a deep, calm breath through his nose. "Julian . . . He was a top official in Umbrella, and one of the members of our S.T.A.R.S. unit. I met him again after the Raccoon City Incident on Rockfort Island. Since then, we've been trying to track him down. Then, a few years ago, we got a tip from a reliable source concerning the whereabouts of Umbrella's founder, Oswell E. Spencer. So, we paid him a visit hoping he would lead us to Valentine."

Sympathy shines in Sheva's eyes, so he doesn't meet them. 

"Alberta's body was never found and she was presumed dead. The person I saw in that data looked like her. I . . . I have to know if she's still alive."

"You two were close." Sheva says it softly, with a lot of meaning, hidden emphasis and understanding. 

"We were partners," He says, then admits, "in all things."

She nods and looks to the horizon. 

"What about you?" He redirects. "Why did you join the BSAA?"

"My parents were involved in an accident caused by a pharmaceutical company when I was young." She says it easily, like she's had to a million times. Maybe she's got better coping mechanisms than he does. 

"Umbrella?" He guesses with a weary sigh. 

"Yes." She says it like she's surprised he knows. "I only found out later that the _accident_ -" She spits the word, "-was to cover up the manufacturing of biological weapons for terrorists. They were using Africa as a test bed for their experiments. Bioweapons were responsible for the deaths of my parents." She gets angry again. "And someone has to pay for that!"

"So you joined the BSAA."

"There's only so much one person can do." She admits. "Even a superhero like you, Chris."

"I'm no superhero." He scoffs, and the words _o_ _r she would still be here_ ring loud and unsaid. 

"Then let's make a stand for our fallen brothers!" Sheva announces. 

He nods. "Hang on."

They make it through the swamp with only nominal difficulties, and when they run out of swamp, they traverse through the villages made by the marshlanders. They come across journals an dfield notes, detailing the introduction of the Los Plagas, and how it drove all the villagers to madness. They also stumble across a manufacturing plant of some kind, possibly a warehouse. With no other way forward, they go inside to investigate. Inside, they find Josh Stone. 

"Sheva?" Josh says, looking exhausted and roughed up. 

"Are you okay?" Sheva asks, relief prematurely sagging her shoulders. "How did you end up here?"

"We were at the port when we were attacked and then, well . . . I ended up here. Where's the rest of the team?"

Sheva looks down, no doubt the image still fresh in her mind, but Chris isn't so certain. 

"Shit." Josh hisses. "Why did you not retreat? We are no match for them!" 

"I've got unfinished business." Chris replies shortly. Alberta was his team captain, both in S.T.A.R.S. and the BSAA, and he knows for damn certain that she wouldn't have found herself in a facility six hours away from the place her team died. She would have killed that fucking thing, pulled out or died with them. 

"The hard drive containing data on the BOWs had a picture inside; the picture was of Chris' friend." Sheva explains, and despite the _shut up_ on the tip of his tongue, he doesn't say anything. Sheva trusts Josh, and even though his gut has never been wrong, he's not going to be the one to impune Sheva's captain and big brother figure. 

"A friend?" Josh sounds interested. 

"I'm not leaving until I find Irving and figure out what the hell's going on here." He insists. 

Someone runs past one of the windows and Josh pulls his pistol. "Let's save the chit-chat for later."

Despite getting rapidly surrounded by Plagas-infected villagers, Josh manages to open the elevator door for them, then the catwalk door out of this death-trap of a room. They jam the door shut and take a moment to catch their breath. 

"Are you okay?" Josh asks. 

"I think I'm alright." He replies. 

"I'm okay." Sheva answers. 

"I think Irving is trying to blow up the place and make his escape. You must stop him before it's too late. I'll try to find us a way out of here."

"Alright." He acknowledges. "We'll go after Irving."

"Good, okay. So there's a dock up ahead. That is probably where he's going to make his break." Josh directs. 

"Copy that." Sheva says. "And Josh- Be _careful_."

Josh looks like he wants to say something, but purses his lips and nods instead. 

It takes them a bit - the place is crawling with bloodthirsty infected, but they do make it to a dock on the other side of the facility. Irving is pacing on top of a yacht, but they watch the hooded figure that saved Irving at the mine jump down into a speedboat. 

"Splendid timing!" Irving yells with a laugh when he spots them, clapping his hands. "Youse two are just in time for the fireworks show! Boom!" He laughs like a maniac one more time, then the ship leaves the dock. 

"I hate that guy." He mutters, and Sheva shoots him a look that says _duh_. 

"Sheva, can you hear me?" Comes over the radio - Josh. "I've secured a boat! It' son the other side of the dock! Hurry!"

They manage to fight their way through the horde that had followed them out onto the docks, nearly falling into the boat Josh is sitting in. Just as he's unmooring the vessel, the whole facility blows up behind them, sending up billowing clouds of black smoke. They don't have long to stew in their failure - a _second_ failure - in stopping Irving. They're harried across the water, but they do manage to catch up to the yacht Irving was on - or, more precisely, Irving smashes into them. Josh gets them close enough to board - that machine gun is a pain in the ass - and peels away to escape sinking. Chris and Sheva hike aboard, finding more hostiles and Irving himself. 

"Won't you two just die already?" Irving squeals. "You two are making me look bad! Who do you think got this whole operation off the ground? Research like this doesn't fund itself, you know. Yet everyone looks down on me."

Chris really considers that more of Irving's problem. Maybe if he found a face that fit his skull, he wouldn't have so much trouble making friends. 

"But not anymore." Irving continues, stabbing himself with an injector. 

"Don't do it!" Sheva cries out, but the damage is done. 

The mutilation is fast, and the repulsion is instant. The tentacles bursting from his back, the eyes rolled up in the back of his head - Irving was ugly before, but he's fucked now. 

"I'm far beyond anything you could ever hope to become!" He shrieks into the sky. His human body doesn't even move as the tentacles on him throw him into the water. Apparently, that was all it needed, because when he surfaces again, he's like some slicked-up Kraken, with what remains of Irving sitting in the middle of the beast's mouth. 

"I just got an extreme makeover!" Irving howls with laughter. 

Chris isn't particularly impressed. He doesn't necessarily look _better_ as an infected monster, but he doesn't look _worse_ , either. He should probably be more focused on the massive tentacles surrounding the yacht, though. 

It turns out that Irving was his own undoing, since the machine guns they got on board to disable turn into the key to destroying the beast. In a rare smattering of good will from on high, the beaast-half of Irving actually _bites him off_ , as one might nip the tip of their tongue, and Irving lands wetly on the deck of the ship, wiggling like a toddler caught in a sleeping bag. He's pulsing and grotesque, slippery and fleshy on the metal panelling. 

"Tell me what you were planning to do." Chris demands. 

"Damn Excella." Irving whines. "I guess I wasn't worth the good stuff."

"Excella?" Shit, Sheva doesn't know the name either. 

He kneels down, despite not wanting to get closer, and holds up his phone. "Where is this facility? What is the Uroboros Project?"

"Wow, you BSAA are just right on top of everything, huh?" Irving cracks wise. "The balance of the world is changing and you're completely oblivious to it."

"What's changing? What are you talking about?" Sheva demands. "Is it the Uroboros Project? Is that it?"

"It's too late now . . . No one can stop it. Uroboros is about to change everything-" Irving beings to spasm in pain. 

"Chris!" Sheva jumps forward just as he jumps back.

"Chris? So you're Chris?" Something like revelation just happened in Irving's eyes. 

"What do you know about me?"

"All your answers await, Chris . . . In that cave. If you can survive long enough to get there." Irving gasps as he's writhing. "Dying's not so bad, but it's not going to change anything. You're still screwed!"

Irving expires at their feet, dissolving in his own toxic fluids. 

The cave that Irving pointed out isn't big enough for the yacht, so they radio Josh and he comes and collects them, ferrying them into the little cove. Sheva spots the boat the figure used to escape. They step off the boat and onto the dock when Josh finds his voice. 

"So, you two are really going to go through with this?"

"Yes." Sheva answers earnestly. "This isn't just about Alberta, but the Uroboros Project as well."

"I guess there's nothing I can do to stop you." Josh says. "I will call HQ and try to get the withdrawal order recinded. And get you backup. Try not to get yourselves killed."

Chris nods to him, internally feeling a pang of guilt for the misplaced suspicion. 

Josh pulls away from the dock and exits the way he came, and they're well and truly on their own now. 

| | | 

Sheva admits to knowing Excella Gionne - apparently the head admininstrator for Tricell's African division - but so far as she knows, Excella's not done anything, and all they have is Irving's word, the last breaths of a dead man. 

It's not long before the cave opens up to a massive underground chamber, and a whole city of ruins below them. It's awe-inspiring and humbling, but the signs of activity make it hard to appreciate the majesty of the scene. What's also less than ideal, as they traverse the expanse of the city, is that the whole thing is a booby trap in waiting. It seems like every other second, something is trying to fall on them or drop them down an endless hole. Chris isn't sure he's ever done this much cardio in his life, and he whole-heartedly regrets lifting weights over running. 

They finally find their way out of cramped tunnels only to enter a room full of flowers, all thriving despite the complete absence of sunlight. But he spots it anyway; the Umbrella logo, hidden under years worth of rust and dust, by Umbrella nonetheless. 

"What were they doing here?" Sheva wonders aloud. 

"That stuff over there has the Tricell logo on it." He points out the entrance to what it likely a lab of some sort, or at least the more active area of the cave system. 

"Were they working together?"

"Only one way to find out."

Notes about a 'Progenitor virus' litter the halls, and employee emails mention 'mass vacations for hard work'. It all reeks of evil shit, and as they exit the entrance tunnel, they're greeted by the vast expanse of a pod room. Sheva points out its the same one from the pictures with Alberta. He gets excited for just a moment - a vivid memory of the soft blue of her eyes when she's watching him wake up first thing in the morning runs through his head - but then one of the pods stretches out from the wall and opens up, revealing a desiccated husk of what was once a human being. The bars holding it in place open, and it falls, limp and lifeless, into the cavernous void below. 

"What have they done?" Sheva manages, heartbreak in her tone, but Chris can't feel anything. He rushes over to the computer, trying desperately to keep that flame of hope alive. 

_If there's no confirmation, then it's not a kill._ Alberta used to drill that into them in S.T.A.R.S., but it was a philosophy she lived by. Everything needs proof, and Chris isn't willing to throw his heart down into that void until he can be certain Alberta's there to catch it.

The computer pops up her name, her picture (mercifully still intact and _herself_ ) and an [ACCESSING FLOOR] prompt, then the whole floor they're standing on begins to descend, down into that very void. 

"There's so many." He can't help but notice. "They must be kidnapping people from all over the world to run their experiments on."

Abruptly, the elevator-floor grinds to a halt, and the computer flashes up a red screen and an [ACCESS DENIED] prompt. 

"Why?" Sheva barely has time to get the question out before some massive monster descends from nowhere (god, does he ever hate that - why do they have to be so good at _climbing shit?_ ). 

The thing is enormous, and they have to run laps around the centre poll, shooting at its legs to get it to fall off. It's not easy or fun, but a few moments after the thing's shrieks die away, the lift kicks into gear again, stopping just a little bit further down than they already were. A pod extends from the wall, much further than the other, to come to a stop in front of them. His heart is beating so fast it's like its going to come right out of his chest. The pod opens, the stasis liquid pours out, but when the lid lifts away, it reveals an empty chamber. 

_I expect better from my second, Chris, that's far from confirmed._

"Damn it, where is she?" He snaps, startled when the computer answers. 

"Mr. Redfield." An Italian woman purrs over the monitor. "How nice to finally make your acquaintance."

He doesn't have time for this. "Who the hell are you?"

"Excella Gionne - she works for Tricell." Sheva answers. 

"Nice," Excella patronizes, "you've done your homework."

"An officer in the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium - why?" Sheva demands. 

"As if I need to explain myself to you." Excella huffs. "Although, weren't you two given orders to retreat?"

"So it was you."

The dogtags burn against his skin. "Where's Alberta?!"

"Alberta?" Excella rolls her eyes. "Even if I did know, you think I would tell _you_?"

"Cut the shit. Where?"

"As soon as you two are done with your little vigiliante mission," Excella continues, unphased, "you should leave. There's nothing here worth throwing your lives away for." The transmission cuts out. 

_Not a confirmation_ , 

He doesn't bother to get mad, but feels the focus come over him. He needs to find her. He needs to find her more than he needs his next fucking breath, and if she were dead, Excella would have thrown it in his face, he can tell. There's something more, and Alberta's at the centre of it.

They make their way further into the facility, finding an elevator that will reach the surface levels. In the cool silence of the elevator, their radios suddenly spark back to life, and they pick up Excella talking faintly to a man. It's garbled and muffled, but he can hear Excella more clearly. 

"Julian?" He frowns. 

"What?"

The transmission cuts out again. "Shit. Valentine . . . I'd hoped he was dead."

It's bad news before any possible good news about Alberta's survival can be confirmed, just what he didn't need. They press on regardless. 

They manage to catch up to Excella, who shows them the reality of what Uroboros looks like, taking over the body of a man, stretched-thin and nearly transparent. She goes on about a 'new world' and 'his vision and mine combined' and 'evolution', but Chris doesn't give a shit what he grand plans are. Excella leaves them behind while they fight the man, but they manage to kill it and press on. 

They come out to another set of ruins, finding Excella standing at the bottom of a staircase, looking upwards in peaceful thought. 

"Excella Gionne, stop right there!" Sheva calls. 

"Bravo." Excella turns to face them with a patronizing smile and a slow clap. 

"Damn it, where's Alberta?" He snaps - his patience is running thin, and there was never much of it to begin with. 

"Hmph. Alberta? Maybe I'll tell you, maybe I won't."

The figure from the mine and the boat drops down from the ceiling, a haze of black fabric and speed. It quickly grabs Sheva's gun, holding her while it kicked back, almost knocking the pistol from his grip. It kicked him in the stomach, pushing him away, then spun around to kick away the gun in Sheva's hands. He recovers quickly and fires, taking out the figure's mask. It's equilibrium upset, it does a series of backflips, creating space and getting out of point blank range. Once it stops, it reaches up to its face, confirming that the mask was indeed gone, then standing straighter. 

"Stop playing around, we want answers." Chris barks. 

And then the voice he dreaded to hear comes echoing down from the top of the staircase. "You haven't changed."

"Valentine!" He hisses. "You _are_ alive."

"This is Valentine?" Sheva sounds like she can't believe it, and he's not certain what it is that she doesn't believe. 

Julian Valentine looks nearly the same as the last time they laid eyes on each other at Rockfort, icy blue eyes gleaming coldly from across the room. He's still got the same shaved sides, the top long enough to fall over his forehead on the left side. He's wearing digital Arctic camouflage cargo pants tucked neatly into black boots and a royal blue thermal long sleeved shirt. His holsters are up on his chest, strapped into a chest halter, and he looks unbearably smug. 

"We last met at the . . . Spencer Estate, right?" Julian croons. "Well then, isn't this one big family reunion. I would expect you to be happier to see us."

"Us?" He mutters. 

"So slow to catch on." Julian pulls back the hood on the figure.

Chris' heart stops in his chest. "Alberta." He can't help it; he lowers his gun and takes a few steps forward. "Alberta, it's me, Chris."

"What?" Sheva looks at the woman standing there before them. "Are you sure that's her?"

"The one-" Julian's grin is repulsively smug. At Julian's side, Alberta - with her hair plaited in a neat French braid - looks exactly like he remembered her. Maybe she even looks younger than he expected, without creases of worry or stress on her face. She's as beautiful as the day he met her, and he wants nothing more than to rush over to her and pull her close, to erase the gap of the last three years and never let her out of his arms again. And then she opens her eyes. "-and only."

What was once a blue shimmering and pure enough to be the water around the Maldives, there's now a molten red, shifting and flowing like lazy magma around slitted pupils. They flare right enough to blur our the whites of her eyes, highlighting her cheekbones. He's dressed her like a mockery too - skin-tight Kevlar that shows off every curve of her body and in fucking _purple_ , no less. Not to mention she's wearing heels, as if Alberta wasn't already comfortably taller than everyone in the room, including Excella's hair. He's got her dressed up like the opposite of everything she is, of everything she'd ever wanted to be. 

She throws off the cape that had obscured her, jumping forward with no effort and slamming both feet into him. She flips off him, dodging Sheva's bullets as she twists mid-air, then lands with cat-like grace on her feet. She kicks the gun of Sheva's hands, then wraps both thighs around Sheva's head and flips them both over, throwing Sheva across the room. She dashes forward again, catching him by surprise and grabbing the slide and barrel of his pistol, shoving her other hand under his jaw to grab his neck. 

To her credit, Sheva recovers remarkably quickly and has her gun pressed to Alberta's head, but Julian appears and elbows Sheva's face, knocking her out of the way. Alberta loosens her grip enough to swing a leg behind herself, hitting Chris in the back of the head. She then drives the heel of her palm into his solar plexus, forcing him back. 

"Now, let's finish this, once and for all." Julian announces. "I think the odds are fair. Two, on two?" He drops into a gross purr. "Right, Alberta?"

From there, it's a shitshow. Julian is stupid strong, stronger than he remembers, but Alberta is another force altogether. She doesn't even run, she just casually walks up to Sheva before kicking the shit out of her. He's not sure Sheva could have stood a chance against a human Alberta, and it's clear that Julian has made Alberta anything but. His own misfortune leads him to take some of her punches, and even though he can tell from her form that she's holding back, she still nearly shatters his arm. 

"We're never going to win like this - run!" He orders, ducking into the side corridors. Their only hope is to stave them off with around-the-corner shots in the tight corridors where the powerful melee fighting these two seem good at won't be executable. They manage to keep them off for quite some time, but then Julian gets bored. 

They come out of the corridors to find Julian at the top of the staircase, waiting for them. "I expected more of a challenge after all this time, Chris. But then, you always were only second best." A phone starts to ring, and Julian pulls it out of his pocket. "Yes?" He turns away, toward the elevator Excella quietly saw herself out in, and Chris takes the chance to charge up the stairs. 

"Valentine, stop!"

Julian hangs up, turning to them with a smirk. 

Behind them, from around the corner, Alberta seems to materialize, disarming Sheva then kicking her across the balcony. She then grabs his wrist, elbowing him sharply in the throat, then twisting his arm and flipping over it, flipping him with her to keep his arm in its socket. On his side, she pins him to the ground with a knee on his head, wrenching his arm once more to disarm him, too. 

He can barely breathe, but he tries anyway. "Alberta, c'mon! It's me, Chris! Snap out of it!"

"Way to go, Chris." Julian chuckles. "But now that your . . . _partner_ has arrived, I'll leave you two to get re-acquainted."

She twists his arm again and he can't help the cry of pain. "Al! C'mon, get yourself together! Wake up! Alberta Wesker!"

Her grip is faltering, but by no means loose. For the first time since entering, he can hear her exertion noises, little grunts and breaths that normally come with fighting. Then he hears it. "Ch- Chris-"

She throws herself off him, snarling in range and panting like she'd run a mile. The red of her eyes was illuminating the floor. 

"Remarkable." Julian titters. "Resisting still, even at such an advanced stage. I guess Spencer did have at least one success, hmm?"

Alberta snarls, an animal sound he's never heard her make before, and she takes shuddering steps towards him. 

"Commendable, but futile." Julian continues, a mockery of sympathy. He clicks something on the device in his hand and Alberta _screams_ , dropping to her knees and clutching her chest. Chris feels it right along with her. "No more times for games, I've got work to do. Have fun watching Alberta suffer."

Chris manages to get back to his feet, but the door to the elevator closes in his face. "Wait, what did you do to her?"

With a fierce yell from behind him, he spins around just in time to see Alberta tear the front of her suit apart, a large red device pulsing softly. 

"What's that on her chest?" Sheva asks, having also gotten her wits about her and returned his gun to him. 

"We have to get it off her." He insists, though Sheva doesn't put up an argument. 

Alberta, despite being clearly physically superior, dodges them, hissing and snarling. She claws at herself when he calls her name, pausing long enough to Sheva to get a crackshot off and damage the device. The damage makes it spark, which puts Alberta into an even more frenzied state of chaos, alternating between striking out at them and slinking away to tear at her hair. He manages to catch a hold of her, enough for Sheva to shoot the device again and flip her over, onto her back. He's quick to get on top of her, putting his weight on her ribscage to keep her down and using all the arm strength he's now super glad he lifted weights to get to rip that stupid fucking device off her. 

It comes out with long, deep wires embedded in her sternum. She sounds like she's dying as it comes out, but is thankfully not coherent enough to stop him. Once it's out, she shoves him off with strength she hadn't been showing and rolls to her feet, still clutching at her chest. She's panting raggedly, her neat braid having come loose and her beautiful golden hair falling free around her shoulders. 

"Alberta?" He tries, taking a tentative step forward, unsure if any of that programming from before will still be active with it gone. 

Through the tresses, she meets his gaze. The fire in her eyes has dimmed down to a dull glow, like a candle behind a red lampshade. "Chris . . . "

"Alberta." He can't keep the joy from welling up and overwhelming him, but when he goes to embrace her, she skitters back. "Alberta, c'mon-"

The most wounded, broken expression crosses her face. "I'm a monster, Chris."

"We can fix this." He says automatically, but it's the wrong thing. He's never seen Alberta this distraught, shaking her head violently and backing up like a frightened child. "I'm not going to hurt you, Alberta, _please_ -"

"No, no no no." She's holding her chest now as she hyperventilates and he realizes all at once that it's not that she's afraid _of_ him, she's afraid _for_ him. "I can't- I can't-"

"Alberta," He tries again, softening his voice, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels, "I can help you. Let me help you?"

It's pure anguish on her face as she finally stands to her full height, though she's still sunken in on herself and shying away. "You have to stop him. Julian. Uroboros will kill the world. You have to go. I- I have to go. I need to go. Forgive me, Chris, forgive me."

Then, in a black blur, Alberta seems to teleport to the top balcony, vanishing down the top hall. 

"Alberta!" His voice cracks on the end of her name, and it's like watching her fall out that window all over again. He wants to hold onto Alberta and weep his joy into her neck, he wants to clutch at her legs and beg her not to leave, he wants to find Julian and beat him to death with his bare fists. He wants to collapse in weakness and just breathe until all the hurt and the pain goes away. 

Sheva clearly doesn't know what to do, but she lays her hand on his shoulder in silent camaraderie. 

"Do you trust her?" She asks suddenly. 

"What?" He manages to sound hoarse and exhausted from tears despite his dry eyes. 

"Do you trust Alberta Wesker, _your_ Alberta Wesker?" Sheva asks again. 

"I do."

"How much?"

"With my life."

"With the lives of everyone on this planet?"

"Yes?" He doesn't get where she's going. 

"Then you have to do as she says." Sheva turns him, the two of them facing each other. "You have to stop Julian Valentine. If she's half the woman you seem to think she is, she'll come back when she's ready. This moment of freedom has been years in the making for her, and you don't know what she's been through yet. But right now, what we can do for her, is do as she says."

He takes a deep breath, so, so thankful that Sheva was assigned as his partner. "Okay."

"Let's go." Sheva squeezes his shoulder, headed to the elevator Julian disappeared into. 

He spares one last look in the direction Alberta disappeared to and whispers what he wanted to tell her. "I love you."

| | |

When he does the debrief back at base, when this is all over, he'll wind up honestly telling them he doesn't really recall. Sheva does, but he doesn't. It was like an eerie wave of calm and duty overtook him, the last dregs of himself that Alberta didn't take when she ran, and everything else shut down. 

He recalls getting on the tanker, shooting at Excella in a lab, Sheva palming a vial of the P67. He knows about the mound of corpses, how Uroboros rejected Excella and she used those corpses to become a monster. Doesn't remember how they defeated it, though. He's a little surprised when the debrief team says he got a text from Alberta telling them to use the P67 serum on Julian to poison him, and that he actually found Julian in front of the bomber. He does remember holding Julian still while Sheva stabbed him with the syringe, and he remembers being on the bomber. 

Yes, he remembers the bomber, because that's when it all came to a head. 

Julian is a mess, kneeling in front of the cockpit and panting, clearly trying to regain his wits. "Looks like I underestimated you."

"There's no one to save you this time!" Sheva shouts. 

Julian slams his fist into the door, denting it. "I don't need anyone else! I have Uroboros!"

"And _I_ ," Comes a mocking voice from the ceiling, "have the Tyrant. Care to test yourself against a _real_ opponent, _your Grace_?"

Julian doesn't have time to snarl out a reply, because there's a black flash and the whip of blonde hair, Alberta slamming Julian into the wall hard enough to leave an _imprint_ , not just a dent. She's still wearing the outfit Julian put her in, but there's a notable addition strapped to her thigh - the AW-01, the worn S.T.A.R.S. emblem embossed into the metal. 

"Care to see your hubris enacted in real-time before your eyes?" Alberta taunts, lifting him off the wall, stepping back and slamming him directly into the ground. She lifts him so easily, it's like he weighs nothing. He tries to fight against her grip, getting his legs around her waist and twisting sharply, but she _doesn't move_. She just lets him, hand still wrapped tightly around his throat and his legs holding onto her waist, doing about as much to move her as a gentle breeze. Her hair doesn't even shift with his effort. 

"The right to be a god?" She parrots back a line he'd used earlier. "You don't have the right to the shit that ran down your mother's legs the day she gave birth to you. You made yourself a beast, submitted to Umbrella's will by offering them your _spine_ , and tried to augment yourself to give you something you've never had - _strength_. The audacity you ever had to _breathe_ in my presence, let alone everything you've done to me since, deserves more malice than I have time to afford you."

"You can't stop Uroboros!" Julian gasps, clawing at her. Her eyes flair brilliantly, and her pupils narrow. 

"Can't I?" She squeezes tighter just to hear him choke. "One of you, be a dear and open the back hatch. We'll bring her down the old fashioned way, hmm?"

"No!" That threat seems to give him the extra bit he needed, because Julian breaks free of Alberta, rushing at Chris who's running to the emergency hatch override. Chris manages to get it the very moment Julian's fist would have slammed into his head. But Alberta's blur, and she's in front him in time to not only catch the punch, but crush down and shatter all his knuckles. She throws him up and int he centre of the bay, walking calmly up to him as the wind rushes in and back out again, pulling them out with it. 

"I've had enough of you to last a lifetime." Alberta says, crouching down to rip off the metal plate that he was holding onto. Unfortunately, Julian is still coherent enough to catch Sheva's boot, and the decline is steep enough that if Alberta moves, she'll go flying out too. She leans back, drawing her pistol, but it's not a clear shot with Sheva in the way. Sheva seems to make the executive decision to take the fight in her own hands, making deliberate eye contact with Chris before letting go. 

"No!" He yells, visions of Alberta crashing out the window springing to mind. He lets go, catches her bar and catches him. 

"If I go, I'm taking the two of you with me!" Julian snarls.

"Chris, swing left!" Alberta orders, and he does without thinking. Alberta lets go of her hold and takes Julian out, the two of them disappearing out the back of the bomber. 

The crash in the active volcano wasn't a whole lot of fun either. 

"I should have killed you years ago, Chris." Julian snarls from behind them. 

They both snap around, guns raised. "Your mistake! It's over, Valentine!"

"Over? I'm just getting started!" Julian snarls and punches down into the bomber he's standing on top of, and to their horror, the thick tentacles of Uroboros climb up his body. 

"Are you stupid? Move!" Alberta slams into Julian the moment he lands on the ground, sending him reeling back into the bomber. Chris doesn't take the bought time for granted, grabbing Sheva's arm and taking off. He can't help but look back, though, finding Julian a mess of slick black appendages holding onto many sharp bits of metal. 

Despite all odds, Alberta doesn't seem to be having much trouble. As many limbs as Julian now has, he can't actually _keep track_ of her, and she's even more aggressively nimble and fierce now than she's ever been. 

"You want a worthy opponent?" She taunts again, loud enough that they can hear it. "I'll show you why Spencer _wanted_ me and _settled_ for you!"

Julian charges her with a roar of rage, but she actually _catches_ one of the multi-limbs, tearing a bit of jagged metal from its clutches and cutting it off, tossing it casually into the lava even as Julian shrieked in rage and pain. He charged her again and she punched the ground between them, the rock he was standing on splintering apart and taking him with it into the lava. She throws the metal at his head, catching in his shoulder and distracting him long enough to sink low into the lava. She abandons him there, launching herself across the rock pads to join them. 

The sound of a helicopter drowns out the beat of his heart when she gets close, and she makes sure he gets on after Sheva. Alberta's just climbed up onto the helicopter - flown by Josh with one of the surviving members of Charlie Team having tossed down the ladder - when Julian screams _CHRIS_ so loud they can hear it in the air, tentacles launching out from the lava to catch on the skids of the helicopter, slowly reeling them back in. 

"This _bitch_." Alberta snarls, pulling Chris' knife from its sheath at his shoulder - a move she's done a thousand times before - and dropping out of the chopper. He's immediately over the edge, breathing out a sigh of relief to see she's hanging from the skid too. She's holding onto the skid with one hand, the knife in the other, and she swings forward to wrap her legs around the writhing mass. She slips the knife between her and the tentacle, than uses all of her newfound strength to slice through the mass. She needs to swipes, but she does dislodge them. The Charlie Team member hands him and Sheva rocket launchers even as Alberta flips back into the bed of the chopper. "What are you waiting for?! Fire!"

They both do as she commands - she's got an imperial authority to her, always has, that affects everyone - and they watch in grim satisfaction as Uroboros and all that remains of Julian Valentine disappears into the flames. 

With a finality that their adrenaline won't let them feel quite yet, Alberta slams the door to the chopper shut. 

He drops the launcher, coming face to face with Alberta. She stares at him, still squared up to fight, then all of that drains away and she averts her gaze, closing her eyes as if that will erase the molten light there. 

"Al, baby, no." He cups her face and forces her to look at him. He knows, reasonably, that no one has ever made Alberta Wesker submit to something she doesn't want to do, and now's not any different. She does follow his guidance, though, allows him to connect their eyes once more. "Please, don't block me out. I love you. Al, _I love you so much_."

Her face crinkles at the edges in the way it does when he knows she's suppressing tears, and her whole body sags in fear and grief. She throws her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck and releasing sobs so deep and painful it's like she's held them at the bottom of her lungs her whole captivity. He wraps his arms around her waist, so relieved and comforted just to _have_ her again. He doesn't bother resisting the tears either, murmuring _I love you, I love you so much, I love you_ when he's got the air. 

They slid to the floor like that, Chris pulling her onto his lap, and don't let go of each other until they land. 


	3. BSAA, USA Branch

When Chris wakes up, he's in the medical wing of BSAA Africa's HQ, his ribs wrapped and a monitor hooked up to him, a steady drip of saline into his arm. The room is dim, likely later in the evening, and halfway down his bed, next to his right hand, sits Alberta. 

She's clean and dressed in soft black clothes, her hair pushed back. Her legs are spread, and she's bent over them, elbows on her knees and fingers folded loosely together between them. She's staring down at them, breathing deep and even. If it weren't for the light on her cheeks, a molten, flowing red, he would think she was sleeping. At his stirring, though, she glances over at him, quickly averting her eyes. 

"Welcome back to the world of the living, Chris."

"Alberta." He breathes her name like a prayer and she winces like someone fired a gun near to her ear. "Hey, what's wrong? You're back, we're safe. Relax a little."

She sits up and twists, taking his nearer hand in hers. She's not wearing gloves, and all the familiar grooves of scars and gun calluses are conspicuously absent. She still won't meet his eyes, but her voice is hard. "The only reason I'm even allowed in here is because Sheva insisted."

He frowns. "Why wouldn't they allow you in? You're my partner."

"I'm not human anymore, Chris." She says, like it hurts her to admit it. "I've not been human for three very long years."

He frowns harder and sits up with a hiss. "I don't care what they think they know - you're with me, and I know you better than anyone."

"That's exactly why they didn't want me in here in the first place. You're emotionally compromised."

"Who isn't, in this business? No one's here only because it's the objective right thing to do."

"Perhaps, but no one else is in love with a BOW." She returns. 

"You're not a BOW. Look at you - you have your own mind, speech, human form-"

She meets his gaze for real. "Mostly. But that doesn't excuse what I am, nor what I am capable of."

He shakes his head. "Alberta, c'mon, there's probably a way we can fix this."

"I have a degree in virology." She reminds him gently. "I may not have been in control, but I was awake and aware the whole time I was in there. I know my own results, and _none_ of this is reversible. I'm a BOW, whether we'd like to admit that or not, and there's nothing to be done for it."

"Don't give up. We can-"

"Sheva insisted I be here," She cut him off, "because I am going to surrender myself to the BSAA."

His voice dies in his throat. " . . . What?"

"I'm going to surrender myself to the BSAA." She repeats, voice firm. "I'm a weapon, and I need to be handled accordingly. My mutation is particularly strong, even if the strain I have isn't anywhere close to new. I need to be studied and understood - dissected, if necessary. There needs to be a countermeasure made soon, and only I can afford them that opportunity."

"Alberta, _no_ -"

She reaches up and cups his face. "If I were anyone else, Chris, both of us would be agreeing that this is the right course of action. This is what _should_ be done."

"But you're _not_ just anyone else. You're one of the BSAA's founding fucking members!"

"It makes no difference. I'm not human anymore, and any protections that afforded me are gone."

He scowled. "You wouldn't let them do this to me."

She doesn't deny it. "I have some more time left, and I didn't want to spend it arguing with you. I wanted to tie up loose ends, and say the words that need saying."

"I won't let them do this. _I won't_."

"Chris." She leans more on a pleading tone. "I love you."

HIs heart shatters in his chest, because he knows this look of hers, this tone - this is goodbye. "Don't do this to me, Al."

"I love you, more than I've ever loved anyone else." She strokes his cheekbone with a fond look, as though she's memorizing every aspect of his face, from the messiness of his hair to the line of his stubble. "I love you more than my heart could ever cope with. You're the best thing that has ever happened to me, and the only thing I've ever wanted is your happiness."

"Then _stay_." He chokes out. 

Her eyes soften, brightening with her emotions, but she continues on as if he didn't speak. "I know that love is only matched by how much you love me. Your tireless pursuit warms my heart and makes me love you even more. But right now, you have to let me go."

"I just spent three years without you, and now you want me to pretend like your absence wasn't agony?" He bursts out. "I can't let you go, Alberta, or I'd have done it already. You're my world, my everything. I can't just leave that behind."

She sighs. "I know. But I need you to, for me. I can't force myself to walk through those doors if I know you're going to come for me. I won't be able to do it. I need you to let me go, to stay away, to move on and find happiness somewhere else. I'll spend every minute waiting for you. And I can't do that to either of us. I need you to be strong for me one last time, and I need you to let me go."

"I can't do that, Al. I can't just- _let you go_."

"I _need_ you to." She pleads. "I can't do what I need to do if you won't _let_ me."

He closes his eyes, fighting back the tears. 

"Get some more rest." She soothes, gently pushing him back down. 

"Kiss me?"

She hesitates. "The BSAA isn't certain how the Tyrant in me is transmissible. I'd rather you not be under investigation as well, or, worse, infected."

He sighs and lets her push him back. 

"I'll remain here, Chris." She promises, but they both know it's a lie. "Rest easy."

He closes his eyes, because he is still very tired and his ribs ache like crazy. He doesn't intend to fall asleep, but he does, to Alberta's strong fingers running through his hair. When he's deep in sleep, she stands, pressing her forehead to his and wishing so desperately that she could kiss him. 

She doesn't. She rises back to her full height and leaves his bedside, gently knocking on the door. When an armed guard opens it, Sheva greets her with a worried look on her face. 

"Take care of him for me." Alberta asks softly, then turns her attention to the guard. "I'm ready."

Sheva slips in the room to take Alberta's place on Chris' bedside and watches with a looming sense of foreboding that this is going to end terribly. When the door clicks shut, Alberta is gone, and only the oppressive silence remains.

| | | 

By the time Chris wakes, Barry has joined Sheva's vigil, and both of them are barely enough to keep Chris on the bed, despite his injured ribs and sore body. Agents come in with tranquilizers ready, but Barry's wicked glare turns them away. Chris isn't a threat to anybody but himself and Alberta right now, and his deranged heartbreak is far from unexpected. 

When he finally does calm down, Chris' face hardens, and Barry sincerely hopes that whatever he's about to ask for isn't too much to accomplish, because that glare belongs on Alberta's face. 

"I'm going to need your help making this happen." He says slowly, as if his words need to really sink in. "First, Alberta's going to be held in the US branch, not here."

Sheva nods. "Josh and I should be able to levy that."

He looks up at Barry. "And I want to see her. Just once."

"They're not going to let you into the room with her." Barry tries to hedge. 

"She would resent me if I walked in there anyway." His gaze firms even more. "But I want to see her. I need to make sure she's okay. Once we're back in the US."

"I'll do what I can." Barry hedges again, because he's only one man, but he doesn't want Chris advocating for himself in front of the BSAA panel - that's going to go poorly. 

Chris nods at them, then stands and starts to dress. He softens when he sees the familiar chest holster, one pistol tucked into the left side. The AW-01 Samurai Edge, the small STARS emblem faded from use. He doesn't pretend not to cry when he picks it up and his dog tags are hanging from the safety - the truest evidence that she'd given up any hope of recovery, any idea of escape. 

"Actually, one more thing, Barry."

"Sure."

"Can you . . . tell Claire, and have her pick me up from the airport?"

Barry's heart breaks - there's no way Chris can get through an explanation to Claire without breaking down like a little boy, and Barry doesn't blame him. Alberta was his lighthouse, even these last three years. Now, Alberta has abandoned her post, and Chris is adrift, bereft and in agony. And if he knows anything about Chris, he won't be able to ever let Alberta go. 

* * *

Edonia is a shit hole full of bone-chilling weather and civil war. Not that he necessarily cares about that, since it's no worse than anybody else in his life used to do, but it is a little obnoxious to have to work around when you've got an objective. 

He holds Ivara's hands in his, the stark contrast in their temperatures terribly evident, and watches with a kind of resigned melancholy. 

Ivara was the one who found him after he broke out of the facility they'd shipped him off to when his mother started getting unruly (when they started to torture her), wearing only the crisp white pants they gave him. Despite her own poverty and failing health, she'd accepted him into her home and made sure he was cared for. It had taken him almost two months to learn to speak the Edonian dialect of Slavic they spoke here, but Ivara had been patient and loving the whole time. It reminded him a lot of the way his own, biological mother had gone out of her way to make sure he was safe, that that left him alone. He was lucky enough that Ivara, too, was a redhead, and didn't have many people left in the bombed-out remains of their little village. 

"Thank you." He whispers to her, reaching up to stroke her hair. She's ice cold, and he can tell that in a few hours, he'll be in the backyard, using all of his exceptional strength to wedge a shovel into the frozen ground. But for now, he comforts the woman who'd helped raise him in her dying moments, whispering soft nothings to her, despite the fact she's been barely coherent enough to drink the last three days. 

He doesn't know what she has - possibly pneumonia or some type of tuberculosis - but that doesn't matter. Her death has been slow, and he's more sympathetic for her than he is outraged at her passing. Her life has been brief and hard, and he's certain that whatever is waiting for her on the other side has to be better than this. 

"Thank you so much." He kisses her forehead. "You'll never understand the gift you've given me."

"Yacob . . . "She breathes out at a rattling rasp. "Yacob . . ."

"Rest, Ivara. I'll be right here." He promises. 

Her eyes flutter closed again and it's not long before the rattling coughs and rough breathing taper off. Her weak grip on his hand flutters with a last gasp of life before she goes slack all at once. 

He stays there for another ten minutes, just watching her. She was so good to him, and she deserved a lot more than this. He wishes he could have given it back to her, that he had of been able to find his mother, free her, and rescue all three of them. But it's not to be, and Ivara's only memory will be in his mind, and the little stone he'll place at the head of her grave, otherwise unmarked. 

He stands, letting her cold and stiffening fingers slip from his and grabs the shovel by the door, heading out into the little backyard, setting to work. It takes about an hour to dig a hold six feet deep and adequately wide, and he's taken off his jacket in the process. The cold doesn't bother him a whole hell of a lot - he runs hot like a furnace - but a few of the remaining neighbours peer out of their closed windows at him. They watch in solemn silence when he brings Ivara's corpse out of the house and lays her down in the frost. He fills it back in over her body, so slight from illness the ground doesn't even reflect a rise. He goes over to the shed, where he pulls out a jagged hunk of granite, which he impales into the riled earth, right over where her head would be. He doesn't have the machines or skill to engrave it with her name, and he knows that none of the others around him do either. That kind of luxury would have to come from outside the country, and only rich city folk had access to that kind of resource. He won't be judged, since Ivara's is far from the only grave around here marked only by memory and simple rock. 

He goes back inside, jacket in hand, and gathers up the meagre belongings that Ivara had managed for him. Bless her, too, for how fast he'd grown in her care. It must have been a nightmare to come up with the clothing required. Still, he gathers it all, leaves the keys on the little desk by the door, and leaves. 

There's nothing left for him here, and he's got no intention to stay here. He's got another goal, and he finally looks like an adult. The mercenaries will probably take him - especially with all the training the lab techs gave him - which gives him a ticket to better countries, where he's much more likely to find her. 

| | | 

He thinks about her a lot, his mother. 

He's in the back of a transport truck right now, headed off to some new contract, so he takes the time to reflect on her some more. 

He remembers her clear as day, with her pretty blonde hair and flaming, slitted eyes. He remembers how she would hold him close, how she would be standoffish and aggressive with the techs that came for him, how they eventually began to bribe her with his safety to allow them to experiment on her without complaint. He remembers that it was one of those promises that got her up on the table for that damn P30 machine to get inserted into her chest. 

_"Your mother would do anything for you." Julian said, a hand on his shoulder. He was only two at the time, but he was able to look over the edge of the observation window. "It would be a damn shame for her to have to lose you, hmm? Don't you think?"_

_He looked up at the older man, the hard set of his eyes juxtaposed against the appearance of friendliness. He knew better than to trust Julian Valentine - Mom had told him not to - and he knew that Julian had a weird obsession with Mom._

_"She's a work of art, you know that?" Julian continued. "So strong and resilient, even now. That she would do anything to keep you safe, though, is going to be her undoing."_

_He scowled, shirking the hand on his shoulder. "You can't make her do anything."_

_"Not yet, maybe. The P30 will take care of that on my behalf. But_ you _, you I can absolutely force."_

_He pulled back, narrowing his eyes in suspicion._

_"You're going to disappear, pretty lamb." Julian grinned. "And every waking moment she has, your mother is going to think she's what got you killed."_

Julian had just sent him to Edonia's Tricell labs, though. He knew that he was too valuable, even just as research material, to be terminated. But he wasn't ever entirely certain his mother would believe it. She had tried as much as she could to protect him, and in the end, he'd gotten to watch as she tried and failed to overcome the P30 implant in her chest, the way she writhed and screamed until it finally won out and the only thing that gave her away was the light shining out of her eyes. 

Stronger than that, though, is the memory of the warmth of her skin, smooth and bronze, the way she would hold him close and whisper her secrets to him, tell him about her life, about who she was before she was here, who his father was, who she wanted him to be when she broke free from the labs. 

_"I knew him for a long time before you, and he was the most important person in my life." She whispered, rocking him on her lap. "He was strong, and resilient, optimism in very word. He would love to see you, to play with you."_

_"He would?" None of the scientists played with him - they didn't really even like to let him when they weren't poking him but had no reason to stop him._

_"Oh yes. He loves children, and he would have adored you to his very core." She nuzzled him, her hair falling around them. He couldn't help but giggle at the ticklish sensation of the strands against his cheeks. "I daresay he would love you more than he loved me, and that's quite the feat."_

_"When we get free, I want to meet him."_

_She nodded, but never actually made the promise, which he didn't notice. He would in the years to come, after he was separated from her, realizing that she wasn't sure whether his father was alive or dead. After all, if they worked together in such a dangerous field, the odds of him actually surviving were low. He also realized, once he was in free in Edonia, that he had no idea what the man he'd been envisioning actually looked like. He had an eidetic memory, just like she did, and he spent every free moment making sure he hadn't missed a single detail from her stories._

_He didn't even know the man's name._

_But in that cell, pressed close to her and falling asleep in her arms, he didn't notice or care, just had vague dreams of a happy life with a whole family and Mom's rare laughter and smiles common enough to be taken for granted._

He remembers his mother, and he misses her each day.

* * *

Piers just happens to be in the hallway when Wesker is escorted from the airfield to the labs. 

She walks with a raised head and an aura of dignity and command that few can manage in full tack. Despite that, though, she doesn't actually make eye-contact with anyone, face set grimly and bright red eyes on display for all. Many of the soldiers around them shrink away, whether from subconscious fear of BOWs or the scowl on her lips. Piers himself is struck dumb, frozen in place, heartbeat still in his chest, so very similar to the empty ringing left in the wake of a flash grenade. 

When they delivered the news that Alberta Wesker had been declared KIA on her joint mission with Chris Redfield to the Spencer Estate, his whole squadron had fallen silent. 

If Redfield is a legend among the soldiers of the BSAA, Wesker is damn-near mythical. Her extensive military record and success at S.T.A.R.S. as their Captain are common knowledge, and those who had the luck to see her in the field always came back with stories of her punishing skill and talent, regaling the younger troops with crazy anecdotes about what she'd done on their mission. Sometimes it didn't even seem real or possible, like the time she apparently squeezed a BOW's head with her thighs until it exploded because it had caught her mid-flip, but the star-struck look in the teller's eyes was enough to sell it. 

Piers was one of the last of the lucky ones to be personally trained by her. It had been a gruelling experience, and if you'd have asked him at the time, he wasn't so sure his assessment of her methods would have been complimentary. Since then, however, there's been more than one moment where he fell back on that punishing training in the heat of the moment, and it saved him when others died. Wesker had told them when they started with her that she wasn't there to be liked or admired. 

_"My goal in this is to be the woman you look back on when you're old and say 'She was a cruel, merciless bitch, but she kept me alive'."_ She'd told them when they lined up before her for the first time. _"Accept that now, and save yourself the future embarrassment of complaining to command."_

It's an unreal experience now to watch her get taken away, moved like so much chattel to a lab where she'll most likely spend the rest of her life. It hits Piers in a way that nothing else ever has, because he knows that she's infected, and odds are that if she wanted to be elsewhere, she would be. Even now, she's bound to her duty and she won't stray. It's an admirable level of devotion, one he's not sure he would be able to accomplish. He doesn't know what actually happened to her the three years she was gone - likely those files will be classified and never see the light of day again - but he knows it can't be good. He can feel it in his bones that if it had of been her choice, she would have returned to the BSAA a hell of a lot sooner, even if this would always be the outcome. At least with this, it was a choice. 

Then, his thoughts turn to Redfield, to the relentless hope that Wesker was still alive somewhere, and his heart _breaks_.

* * *

The scientists that attend her are dressed in hazmat suits, looking like weird aliens fumbling around as Alberta sits primly in the middle of the room, legs crossed, back straight, hands in her lap and an IV in her arm dripping down a red liquid too translucent to be blood. 

Alberta's eyes are closed, like she's meditating even though she's never done such a thing a day in her life (he swears she's held together by stress), and seems almost purposefully unperturbed by the scientists milling around her, taking readings and samples. She's only wearing a tank top and shorts, highlighting how the Tyrant virus really had erased decades' worth of scarring and hardship. There wasn't a scar to be found on her anymore, and there likely never would be again. 

Even if her eyes were open, he was standing behind one-sided reflective glass, in the lab's control room, with two nervous scientists who kept glancing at him. Maybe it was because he was armed, maybe because they knew about his history with her. Not their romantic entanglement, of course - Alberta had been adamant they keep their personal lives private and always got extremely uncomfortable experiencing affection in public, even just minor things like a hug from Claire - but everybody knew they were the infamous S.TA.R.S. survivors. They'd been partners since they'd joined the BSAA initiative, and inseparable on deployment. But he isn't going to do anything to these people. He's just here to see Alberta one last time, to assure himself that if nothing else, the BSAA will treat her well. She deserves it - and so much more - without qualification, and he wants to make sure she receives it. After all, she's been unpersoned now, written off as a monster with no rights to speak of any longer. 

Chris couldn't protect her from Julian, couldn't save her from her captivity and torture, but he could ensure she was comfortable and safe here, and he'd be damned if he didn't.

"Are you okay, Chris?" Rebecca asks from beside him, keenly aware that he is, in fact, not. 

"What are they going to do with the research they do on her?"

"Likely try to develop a vaccine." She explains. "Even just the preliminary test results show a high concentration of an antibody we've never seen before - one that can and does actively suppress virus. That's probably why she never got sick when we were at S.T.A.R.S. - it was impossible for her to catch the flu. The Tyrant is the most aggressive and hardiest virus we've ever encountered, so the fact she can suppress, absorb and adapt it to her body's own needs is extraordinary."

"Will you be involved in this research on her?"

She hesitates. "Not directly. From my university, I'll be given the packaged data. It's my job to extrapolate it, not to gather it. so if you're wondering whether I'll be overseeing her, I won't be."

He smiles, but its broken and fractured at the edges. "It was too much to think that you would. But at least I know the data is in good hands."

"Look, Chris, I know you're probably not super keen on going back to Kijuju," She hesitates again, but decides to plow on, "but I have no doubt that Julian ran a ton of tests on her himself, before, during and after her infection. We also don't know what else they subjected her to, only that the Tyrant was the only successful infection."

"You think Julian tried the Progenitor on her first."

"I'm almost certain he did. The P30 device you and Sheva mentioned in your reports? Alberta told us it ran on a modified Progenitor virus, and that she was on a dose so high it had killed other subjects in her position. It might be worth going back to look, since you're already familiar with the facility."

"I'll consider it. HQ wants me to go on a _mental health leave_."

"Well, I can't say I disagree." She admits. "You need to rest and recover, not only mentally either."

"Claire, Sheva and Barry all said the same thing." He huffs. "But I don't think I can."

Rebecca silently gestures for the control operators to leave the room, which they do with only a worried glance. Once they're gone, she takes his hand. "I'm listening."

His next breath rattles out of his chest, and she knows tears are lurking behind his eyes. "I've lived in our apartment since we escaped Raccoon. I spent the last three years holding onto the last bit of her that I had - everything of hers is still in the places she left them. I've exclusively used the body washes, shampoos, laundry detergents, fabric softeners and even air fresheners that she liked. All of her clothes are still hung up in the closet or folded in her dresser, and all of her toiletries are still in their proper place. The apartment's like a time capsule, one I've locked myself in partly from denail, partly from hope. But now- Now she's sitting right there. She's close enough to walk to, to crawl to, and I know that she'll never step foot in there again. She'll live in this- this _prison_ until she dies, and there's nothing left now for me to cling to. I can't go back and live there, because its filled with _her_ , but I know I wont ever be able to bring myself to get rid of any of it. She's _right there_ , Rebecca, but she's already dead."

Rebecca glances through the window and considers the form of Alberta right there, Chris' lens tinting her vision. 

He's right - Alberta will die in this facility, or one just like it, with an IV of the Progenitor virus keeping her docile and perpetually weak. She'll be treated like a lab rat, to be prodded and poked until she can't yield any more information, then they'll do the tests all over again just to make sure they didn't miss anything. She may as well be dead, because she'll never taste freedom again, and she walked into this room knowing that. She came prepared to die, and she let the one person who loves her go. But for Chris, there will never be any consolation. She'll forever already be buried just within reach, separated by a pane of glass and a conviction to protect others. There will be no funeral, no mourning period. He'll be expected to treat it like a break up or a divorce, not the death it truly is, to bounce back and move on. But he's been with Alberta for almost twenty years - just under half his life - and they've faced down the worst humanity has to offer together. She's as much his beating heart as the muscle pumping away in his chest, and there will never be a way to staunch the bleeding, to close the wound. 

She considers what would happen should Alberta actually die in their care, and she doesn't know whether it would be worse than being the wraith she is right now. She doesn't know if it would cauterize the wound, give Chris the consolation that she's well and truly gone, free and at peace, or if it would send him off the deep end of resentment, make him blame the BSAA for takign her from him and then killing her. She doesn't know if being told Alberta had died would take Chris with her. She's not really keen on finding out which of those option is true, but the forced serenity on Alberta's face informs her that eventually, she'll have to witness it. 

"I can't go back home." He says. "A leave will drive me crazy. But I can't stay here either."

"I can't say I understand, because I don't." She says sympathetically. "But I'll talk to Barry for you. We'll see what we can get you."

"Thanks, Rebecca."

She pulls him into a tight hug, her hand barely touching around his chest. "If I can do it for you, I will."

He rests his cheek on the crown of her head, and she thinks she feels his tears sinking into her scalp, but she doesn't say anything and just holds him tighter.

* * *

"Heard you're having a rough time."

Chris pockets his phone, turning to face the person addressing him and a little taken aback by who he finds. "Leon."

The DSO agent has his hands shoved in his pockets, looking far too easy and casual amidst all the soldiers and armed personnel milling about all around him. Leon ambles over to him, easy as you please. "I'm everybody's favourite errand boy over there. Figured I'd take the time, since I'm here, to pop in on you."

"I take it you just overheard my conversation with Sheva."

Leon doesn't flinch away or even really change expressions. He just shrugs. "Yup."

"Claire must have told you about Alberta."

Leon nods. "Yup."

He sighs. "You here to try to get me to talk?"

"Not if you don't want to. I fly out tomorrow, and it doesn't matter to me or the DSO if I'm hungover on the plane." From an inside pocket of his jacket, Leon produces a silver flask, giving it a little flip before he holds it out to Chris. "As much as I'm willing to listen, I don't really think expressing your feelings is going to help with this one."

Chris takes the peace offering for what it is, almost recoiling when he opens the cap. It's strong, whatever it is, and smells like varnish or paint thinner. "Jesus. What is this stuff?"

"The last of my Eastern Slav vodka." Leon cracks a grin. "I expect you to give me the last of your best stuff too the next time I need a pick me up."

Chris takes a swig of it and is surprised that despite the smell, it's spicy and warm. It burns pleasantly and goes down smoothly - perfect liquor for a flask and something that probably ot the alcoholic in Leon through some pretty bad nights. "Count on it."

Leon's grin broadens. "So, know any good bars around here with a half-decent booth we can monopolize for an evening?"

He does. One of Alberta's trainees found it - Nivans, he thinks the boy was called. "Yeah. They've got a good steak too."

"Even better. The DSO never feeds me when they decide to just ship me out places." Leon doesn't touch him, doesn't offer any consolation, and he's strangely grateful. Everybody else has looked at him like he's broken, like he's going to fall apart or ruin is life now that Alberta's gone. But Leon just looks like he wants to get through the night together with him, and that's a goal Chris can relate to. One step at a time, right?

"You coming or what?" Leon calls over his shoulder, casually meandering to the BSAA's front doors. 

"Yeah, yeah." He pockets the flask - the rest of that is going to be kept for another night, when he can't take the quiet and he needs escape, not solace. He should probably get Leon's number. He may need the man more than anyone else right now. 

| | | 

The hangover he has the next morning is the worst thing he's ever experienced. It feels like the very air is contributing to his headache and his body feels like he was hit by a train. He's sluggish and sore, stiff and cramped and still wearing his pants and boots. 

The only consolation he has is that Leon is equally messed up, entirely content to keep the curtains closed, the lights off and his mouth shut. Leon's a veteran of this kind of morning, though, and wordlessly passes Chris a full bottle of Advil and a glass of water. 

"Thanks." He croaks out.

"Hnn." Leon nods, a short and slow movement as to not jostle his head too much. He's already showered and changed clothes, but he lays back down on the bed and closes his eyes. "Shower's over there."

Chris pats his arm gratefully, downing a handful of pills and forcing himself upright. He stumbles to the shower and thinks better of turning on the overhead light. He turns on the soft light of the mobile mirror, pointing it at the wall, then turns on the shower. The initial blast of sound almost makes him double over, but he pushes into the shower and is grateful for the immediately relief the hot water brings. It brings clarity and perspective, as well as letting him wash off the sweat and stench of booze from his skin. 

In all honesty, he doesn't remember much about last night. Leon's the professional drunk, not him. He remembers getting to the bar, taking over a booth with Leon on the other side, and he remembers Leon suggesting mixed drinks and combinations of rum and vodka. He thinks he might have cried at one point, because Leon somehow wound up on his side of the booth and he was laying on the other man's shoulder. He didn't think he threw up - a miracle, considering the cocktail of spirits swirling through him all night - but he doesn't remember leaving the bar, or whatever walk or drive led them here. He doesn't remember stripping off his shirt, though it is a habit of his, or collapsing on Leon's bed. The other man evidently didn't care all that much, because when he surfaced long enough to take a piss last night, he recalls Leon curled up in the last bastion of space that Chris hadn't starfished out into, apparently having possessed enough coherence to change into sweatpants before passing out. 

He wouldn't go so far as to say that he felt _good_ , but this little outing did feel cathartic. Chris got to be a mess, out in the open, and he knew Leon wouldn't hold it against him. After all the shit Leon's seen, a drunk dishevelled Chris wouldn't make his top ten thousand worst moments. 

He takes his time showering, wincing when he has to pull on dirty clothes that still reek of booze after he finishes. When he leaves the bathroom, Leon's checking his gear and his overnight bag, placing it next to his jacket on the desk chair. 

"Your stuff is on the armchair." Leon says without prompting. "I sorted and folded it for you this morning."

"Thanks."

"You doing okay?" 

Chris doesn't know whether he means in general or just if his hangover has eased. Either way, "Yeah, for now."

Leon nods, a knowing little smile coming to his lips. "That's all we can ask for, right? To be okay for now."

It's a it of a shitty way to live, but it'll have to do. After all, most people who have their hearts ripped from their chests just die. "In this line of work, anyway."

Leon shakes his head with a low laugh and Chris takes a moment to wonder how all the blondes around him manage to have immaculate hair. Whatever. 

"Where is here, exactly? I left by truck at the BSAA."

"We're not too far. I can drop you off in my rental before I go to the airport."

"Thanks, I appreciate it." He means that for both last night and this morning- er, shit, this afternoon. 

"Not a problem." Leon replies, the glint in his eyes saying more than his words. "Anytime."

* * *

Sheva, as she promised to on the call before he met up with Leon, had all the information compiled from the remains of the Tricell operation in Kijuju sent to Chris' apartment. It had taken the better part of three months to work through all the data, and another month for Sheva to wade through it all looking for information specifically related to what Valentine had done to Alberta. But once he had the USBs in his hands, he couldn't actually bring himself to look through them. 

Rebecca had reported to him some positive upsides that the scientists had discovered about Alberta. The former BSAA Commander was for all intents and purposes infected, but her body had assimilated the virus, making it part of her cellular structure rather than a free-floating microscopic parasite. That assimilation had also neutralized the contagion factor, meaning that no one was able to contract the Tyrant from her, either through contact or fluid transmission. Her cellular regeneration was also affected by the hardiness of the virus, and she was able to take immense amounts of punishment without dying. To Rebecca and Chris' surprise alike, Alberta also seemed to be aging in _reverse_ , with crows feet and wrinkles Chris _knew_ she had been developing vanishing. 

"She looks just like she did in S.T.A.R.S. It's uncanny." Barry had commented as they looked over the before and after pictures together. 

Alberta also showed no signs of cancer-like growths or tumours like other Tyrants had experienced, and her body functioned exactly the same as it had before with the added caveat of her resilience. 

"It's interesting too, because her antibody is still perfectly functional." Rebecca told them. "Her immune system still represses foreign agents while the Tyrant functions as a kind of counter-pathogen, entirely destroying the agent. If I didn't know better, I would say she was built for this."

And yet, it took Chris another five months of throwing himself at any mission the BSAA would let him take in order to gather the courage to face down those three little USBs sitting on Alberta's dresser. One more round of drunken pity with Leon had been the final push to haul his ass to the gallows and face down what he didn't necessarily want to learn. 


	4. Project: WESKER, Subject A-13

**Project: WESKER, Phase I**

**Classification: TOP SECRET**

**Authorization: Spencer, Oswell E.**

**Lead: Wesker, Everett J.**

**Subordinate Scientist(s): [REDACTED]**

**Contractors: [REDACTED]**

**Location: [REDACTED], Maine, USA.**

**Operation Start Date: December 11, 1956**

**Operation End Date: Indeterminate**

\---

Notes of Dr. Wesker

December 10th, 1956, we were issued the authorization to begin the first phase of Project: WESKER. Today, we put everything in motion. We already had two hundred candidates prepared, and now we begin incubation. We do not anticipate immediate success, as many natural pregnancies fail and these are likely to be no exception. Should any candidates be successful, we will launch them immediately into the ALPHA stage. 

\---

January 21st, 1957

All candidates failed. An expected outcome. Microscopic autopsies are being conducted to see what, exactly, failed in the process. Will report with any further findings. 

\---

July 2nd, 1957

A fresh round of two hundred candidates have been prepared, and incubation has begun. 

\---

August 30th, 1957

Incubation failed. 78% of candidates volatile and expired prematurely. Adjustments to either preparation or incubation may be necessary. 

\---

November 27th, 1957

Third round of two hundred candidates prepared. Last attempt at artificial incubation. 

\---

December 18th, 1957

Incubation failed. Requesting resources for acquisition of new incubation method. 

\---

March 21st, 1958

Fourth round of two hundred candidates prepared. New incubators prepared, assigned and activated. 

\---

March 28th, 1958

All two hundred candidates killed their incubators and subsequently perished. Autopsies to be conducted on both mother and embryo for source of expiry. 

\---

June 12th, 1959

We have been authorized for only one more run, and should it fail, the Project will be terminated. We have prepared four hundred candidates and returned to artificial incubation, via a new system. 

\---

February 1st-29th, 1960

Thirteen candidates have survived. For purposes of ease, they have been assigned both name and number.

* * *

**Project: WESKER, Phase II**

**Classification: TOP SECRET**

**Authorization: Spencer, Oswell E.**

**Lead: Wesker, Everett J.**

**Subordinate Scientist(s): [REDACTED]**

**Contractors: [REDACTED]**

**Location: [REDACTED], Maine, USA.**

**Operation Start Date: March 1, 1960**

**Operation End Date: Indeterminate**

\---

List of Subjects and Acquired Mutations

A-01; Alice [f]

_Feb. 1_

_Increased immune system activity, increased healing factor_

A-02; Adam [m]

_Feb. 3_

_Increased growth patterns_

A-03; Alex [f]

_Feb. 4_

_Hyperautonomous and basic motor control established within days of birth_

A-04; Amanda [f]

_Feb. 6_

_Substantial fetal growth likely to continue through infancy into childhood - birth weight, 21 lbs_

A-05; Anthony [m]

_Feb. 6_

_Substantial brain activity and enlarged prefrontal cortex_

A-06; Aaron [m]

_Feb. 9_

_Notable strength_

A-07; Alistair [m]

_Feb. 10_

_Notable dexterity_

A-08; Alyssa [f]

_Feb. 11_

_Hyperautonomous_

A-09; Audrey [f]

_Feb. 12_

_Demonstrates spacial awareness and object permanence_

A-10; Anton [m]

_Feb. 14_

_Hyperautonomous_

A-11; Anna [f]

_Feb. 15_

_Notable dexterity_

A-12; Arthur [m]

_Feb. 17_

_Increased biometric rhythms and extremely warm_

A-13; Alberta [f]

_Feb. 29_

_Presents normal, but may express genes later_

_\---_

_Please_ _note:_

All children were created from Dr. Wesker's own DNA samples and the donated eggs of [REDACTED], and are therefore all Caucasian, though exact shades in skin tone vary. However, all children are blonde with blue eyes. This was an unanticipated result of the experiment. The children will be monitored to see if this is a result of the experiment itself or merely chance. 

* * *

**Project: WESKER, Phase III**

**Classification: TOP SECRET**

**Authorization: Spencer, Oswell E.**

**Lead: Wesker, Everett J.**

**Subordinate Scientist(s): [REDACTED]**

**Contractors: [REDACTED]**

**Location: [REDACTED], Maine, USA.**

**Operation Start Date: April 1, 1962**

**Operation End Date: Indeterminate**

\---

Notes of Dr. Wesker 

Six of the thirteen children have already expired. Subjects Alice, Amanda, Anthony, Anton, Audrey and Arthur predecease this report. Other subjects showing symptoms of declining health, both mental and physical. So far, only Alex and Alberta present entirely normal, both to the naked eye and to examinations. They may be the only candidates for stage four. 

\---

_[Notes were missing, decomposed or illegible.]_

\---

May, 1970

To our continued surprise, four subjects have survived to age ten. Alex, Alyssa, Anna and Alberta are the remaining, and are oddly all female. Alex and Alberta continue to excel and supersede our expectations. Alberta, specifically, still seems to have no particularly interesting biological quirks, but remains the healthiest and most physical of all the candidates. To date, she had not been ill once. She is also taller than her sisters. 

\---

_[Notes were missing, decomposed or illegible.]_

\---

September 12, 1973

I regret to inform you that Alberta ran away during the night. She took basic necessities, but did not inform her sisters either of her plan to leave nor what the plan consisted of. I have alerted authorities and sent out search teams - she can't have gotten far. We will find her and return her to the fold. 

\---

_[Correspondence seems to have tapered off or stopped. Spencer appears to have lost interest in the project. Records are missing from this time period.]_

\---

October 3, 1975

I regret to inform you that the last three subjects under our control have all died, within a week of each other. We're investigating what the cause was, but are at present unsure. 

We await your direction.

* * *

**Project: WESKER**

**Classification: TOP SECRET**

**Authorization: Spencer, Oswell E.**

**Lead: Wesker, Everett J.**

**Subordinate Scientist(s): [REDACTED]**

**Contractors: [REDACTED]**

**Location: [REDACTED], Maine, USA.**

**Operation Start Date: December 11, 1956**

**Operation End Date: October 4, 1975**

**Status: FAILURE**

**Closing Authorization: Spencer, Oswell E.**

**Further Instruction:** Bulldoze it and reassign the scientists. Everett, consider yourself retired. 

* * *

_[Transcription of a personal letter, likely from a scientist from the Project: WESKER team, but unsigned, unnamed and undated.]_

Dr. Wesker, 

I know its been some time since you've heard from me, and I'm sorry about that. You know how Umbrella is, breathing down my neck. I guess it's not entirely without good reason, because I went snooping into the old files and found some new paper in there. Remember how we assumed that because the other girls all died so suddenly that A-13 probably did too, if she wasn't dead already? Surprise - Umbrella found her. She made it all the way down to DC, where she enlisted in the army. She was sixteen when she joined, and she was deployed overseas a year later. 

I don't know how the little monster did it, but I don't think we gave her near enough attention. She's the only one that managed to make it to adulthood, and she seems to be exemplary. Her record abruptly cuts off at 23, but you'd be proud - she's got two doctorates, virology and biomechanics. I think she was put into special forces, and even Umbrella doesn't have access to those dark files. I know the project is long over, but I thought you'd like to know that in the end, there was one success. 

Our little Alberta Wesker.

* * *

_[Heavily redacted military career portfolio of U.S. Army Major Alberta Wesker, service number 963-ATWT-5261. Specialization in Black Ops most likely. Additional information about degree in engineering.]_

* * *

_[Honourable Discharge papers, medical records, VA admittance paperwork and non-disclosure forms.]_

* * *

_[Copy of a formal job offering from Raccoon City Police Department, Colorado. Signed by acting Police Chief Irons.]_

* * *

_[Stolen copies of Alberta Wesker's BSAA portfolio, including health records, service records and personal information.]_

* * *

_[Extensive medical records dating to post-Spencer Estate mission, though the subject remains unnamed. Likely to be test results from Wesker's infection.]_

* * *

_[Project: WESKER, Subject A-13 Revivial]_

Attached to this particular file full of medical jargon are pictures and video, both old and grainy and new digital footage. The first video is a security camera.

\---

_It's night, and the camera is positioned on the top of a fence, facing a nondescript brick house surrounded by woodlands. There's an open stretch of lawn between the gate and the house. Unlike the front of the house, visible to the left, this side of the house has no floodlights and is dark. Security forces pace around the perimeter in a bored route, occasionally glancing out into the woods, but otherwise not paying much attention. There are significant gaps in them - the time stamps saying that they're roughly an hour apart in the circuit._

_From the third floor, five minutes after the guard has passed by, a window opens. There no lights on in the room. What appears to be bars over the window wiggle, then fall and land in the grass. A tall young girl slithers out from the window and manages to stand on the small concrete sill as she gently closes the window behind her. She twists and drops down, catching the sill in her hands and looking around her. She shimmies to the side, further into the darkness, then tosses herself horizontally onto another sill, where she catches herself. She shimmies over again and catches hold of an eavestrough pipe, sliding down it in a controlled descent. When she reaches the ground, she makes a dash for the fence, taking a running jump and managing to catch its top._

_The camera rattles, presumably with her inertia, then she pulls herself up and over the edge. With a flicker of blonde hair, she vanishes into the darkness. Notably, she had no possessions with her._

_An hour later, the guard on patrol walks right passed the fallen grate, completely ignorant to the girl's missing presence._

\---

The next video is a recruitment video where that same blonde girl is featured - as an adult - doing situps on a pullup bar. There's annotations added to the video about her strength and ability - surprise at how large she got as an adult and how she needs to be recontained. 

\---

Next comes the pictures, and they're very clearly Alberta this time, laying prone on a lab table, wet and filthy and injured. She's in the same clothes from the Spencer Estate, but she's been stripped clean of her tack gear. There's video that accompanies it. 

_"Strap her down." Valentine says, coming into frame with four other white-coated scientists hot on his heels. "We've got to do this while she's still alive."_

_"I don't think she's going to die." The only female scientist says only to be glared down. She's the one that handled the virus, prepping it while the other scientists cleaned and readied an injection site. They restrain her with metal clamps around her ankles, wrists, knees, elbows, neck, chest and hips. The female scientist comes back into frame, a blue fluid in the syringe in her hand, and injects Alberta high on her upper arm. For a while, nothing happens, then Alberta flatlines._

_"Get her into the chemical bath." Valentine commands and they rush to do as he says. They don't remove her from the table, rather submerge the table into the bath. The woman grabs the camera and repositions it over Alberta's submerged body. Its another fifteen minutes before any of the scientists work up the nerve to say anything. Valentine is leaning over the bath, keenly observing her. The flatline of the heart monitor rings obnoxiously the whole time._

_"I don't think it worked." One of the men says just as the heart monitor kicks up, there's the terrible screech of rending metal and Alberta's arm shoots out of the bath to grab Valentine by the throat. Only her one arm is free, but she pulls Valentine under with her, the new molten glow of her gaze refracting through the water. Valentine holds out a hand and a scientist puts a three-needled syringe into his hand. Quickly, Valentine stabs it into her chest, pressing it down and Alberta collapses with a hiss._

_Valentine surfaces with a gasp - having expected but not truly prepared for this outcome - spitting out swallowed chemical. "Bring her to the surface. She'll drown otherwise."_

_The scientists seem loathe to do so, but they follow his orders. Alberta's still conscious, but clearly more delirious. She hisses and snaps at the scientist that come too close to her face and Valentine has to re-secure her arm because she punched one of the men clean across the room._

_"Get her into one of the pods. I want the full body scans started on immediately." Valentine orders._

_Behind him, Alberta begins to steam. She wrenches one way and then the other, still drugged out of her mind, and the metal groans ominously. The chemical bath on her skin is vapourizing in real time as they watch her struggle._

_"What the hell?" The woman breathes from behind the camera._

_"Magnificent." Valentine laughs. "Look at her go! She's burning through the sedatives already! What's her temperature, Kassani?"_

_One of the more waifish men struggles to speak through his terror. "One hundred and seventeen degrees."_

_Valentine snaps around. "Really?"_

_Kassani looks back down at the reader, eyes bulging out of his head. "Uh, Celsius."_

_Valentine breaks into hysterical laughter. "Even better!"_

_Alberta wrenches hard enough to rock the table, almost upending it. She bars her teeth in a snarl, red eyes blazing, and the metal holding her neck, chest and hips give way._

_"One hundred and twenty-" Kassani retreats. "One hundred and fifty-nine."_

_Dry spots have started to appear on her clothes._

_Valentine suddenly doesn't find it so funny anymore. "Quickly, to the tanks."_

_\---_

_[Email files purged from the system, but recovered by IT teams. Addresses and domains are lost, but the text content remains.]_

Dr. Valentine,

I followed up on the concern you had for a uterine growth inside A-13. It was neither what we expected as a pre-existing reproductive issue nor as a side effect of the Tyrant injection. A-13 is roughly fourteen weeks pregnant. 

The status of the feotus, as much as we can determine, is healthy and thriving. Whether it will be humanoid in appearance and structure remain to be seen, but it appears normal on all of our ultrasounds. I'm not convinced we would be able to perform an abortion on her, if that would be your next direction, considering her resistance to drugs and the fast rate at which she heals. It may not be possible to even perform an abortion via a hysterectomy, since we cannot sedate her for that long and she's likely to close the incision on the hands of the surgeon performing the hysterectomy. 

I'm also not certain, however, that carrying the feotus to term will not kill her as well, though it is less likely to. I will continue to monitor it and her regardless, and have designated it A-13-Beta in her paperwork going forward. 

Let me know what you'd like done, and I'll see what I can do. 

\- Dr. Astasi

\---

Dr. Astasi, 

I definitely want to keep the feotus. I want ultrasound pictures every week, along with any vitals that fluctuate. I want this monitored as closely as possible. Do everything you can to keep it alive, even at the expense of A-13. She's a valuable asset, but she'll be equally valuable dead, too. 

Live incubation failed in the initial Project: WESKER. If she can carry to term, then I think we've cracked what they managed to miss. 

\- J.V.

* * *

_[Enclosed are ultrasounds and vital reports, along with feotus milestones and developmental markers. The feotus appears to be entirely normal, both in appearance and vitals. A-13 remains consistent in terms of vitals and shows no sign of degradation.]_

* * *

_[Email files purged from the system, but recovered by IT teams. Addresses and domains are lost, but the text content remains.]_

Dr. Valentine, 

The infant was successfully delivered, and both A-13 and A-13-Beta are healthy and coherent. A-13 got aggressive and volatile when we attempted to remove A-13-Beta, but remained docile and compliant as long as we didn't try to take him from her. I think this may be a much more effective mode of control than any we've attempted so far, so I suggest leaving him with her for the foreseeable future - at least until the P30 device shows some measure of success and can be implanted. 

A-13-Beta appears and tests entirely normal and human, though he does show a higher core temperature than other children his age. He does test positive for the Tyrant virus, and it seems as woven into his DNA structure as it has become for A-13. We'll have to wait to see if he survives infancy, but I assure you all possible steps have been taken in an attempt to assure that he does. I'd also like to add that she has named the child "Jake", and I do believe its in our best interest to refer to him as such within earshot of her. She is already extremely dangerous and has now become highly protective. 

Once I can configure a method of secure transportation - as I have no illusions to the fact that A-13 will do anything she can to escape us short of leaving A-13-Beta behind - I will have her transferred to the Kijuju facility. I advise that you warn any associates who will be working on her and the infant about all of her strengths and her temper. She has a modicum of, if not trust, then respect for me, but I know she'll kill anyone who is callous or harmful to A-13-Beta. 

Be very, very careful. 

\- Dr. Astasi

\---

Thank you for your input, Heidi, but I can handle Alberta. 

\- J.V.

\---

Dr. Valentine,

Do as you please, but do not come back to me and complain that I did not warn you. Rest assured, I will forward any complaints I receive directly to you. I know you'll deal with them post-haste. After all, I know you learned your lesson in Raccoon City. Reliable and loyal staff are the beating heart of this profession. You're too smart to make the same mistake twice.

\- Dr. Astasi

\---

Dr. Astasi,

Please do your best not to antagonize your superiors. Dr. Valentine is a well-established professional, and your direct superior. I thank you in advance for your cooperation. 

\- Excella Gionne, Director of Tricell Africa

\---

Miss Gionne,

I suggest, then, that you direct your subordinate to act with a modicum of professionalism. As I informed him, what keeps this operation afloat is not fear, but loyalty, and should be continue to act with such blatant disrespect, I shall be forced to act in kind. He is not, in fact, my superior, as he works for you and I do not. In actuality, both of you work for me. 

Thank you in advance for your prompt action in this matter. 

\- Dr. Astasi, Biomechanics Lead Engineer, Tricell International

* * *

_[Dr. Heidi Astasi surrendered herself to the BSAA shortly after the estimated timeframe for A-13 and A-13-Beta's transfer to Kijuju. She revealed valuable information concerning the Tyrant virus, Los Plagas, and what would later materialize to be Uroboros. Her intel was directly related to the Kijuju mission to capture or kill arms dealer Ricardo Irving and several other dealers worldwide. The only active hand she had in bioterrorism seems to be her involvement with A-13 and A-13-Beta, as her PhD is in biomechanics, not virology. Several attempts on her life were made by Tricell until the company fell with the revelations about Tricell Africa's activities. Dr. Astasi is on lifetime probation with a conditional release that she assist in vaccine research with the BSAA and TerraSave.]_

* * *

_[The file on A-13-Beta is closed the same day as A-13 is scheduled for the implantation of the P30 device. The Project status concerning him is listed as "Terminated", and all assets concerning him were transferred to Tricell Eastern Europe, specifically their Edonia lab. That lab was destroyed shortly before Tricell Africa's collapse. The implantation of the P30 device was successful, though the doses of the P67 virus had to be continually upped. Reports state that her body actively fought the control of the P30 for six months, where she was unstable and volatile. Once they reached a massive dose strong enough to quell her, she was sent on assignment as an assassin. The high dosage does appear to have hampered her abilities in terms of strength, speed and regenerative capability comparable to her Tyrant form pre-P30.]_

* * *

_[Retrieved text messages between Excella Gionne and Julian Valentine.]_

[E] She needs to go.

[J] Care to be more specific, sweetheart?

[E] You know exactly who. Alberta is a bigger risk than is necessary. When the P30 got damaged on her last mission, she killed three of the scientists. It'd getting difficult to find people willing to work on her. 

[J] Then threaten to fire them. This is what you're here for, Excella.

[E] You seem to think you're in charge here, Julian. I don't appreciate it.

[J] I would never, baby. 

[J] Look, the fact the P30 as damaged is beyond my control. If you want, I'll work on her myself from now on.

[E] That is preferable, yes.

[J] Whatever you want, sweetheart. 

[E] I still think she's an unnecessary danger. 

[J] I know, but she can do what we can't, do the dirty shit that needs to be done. If she ever truly gets out of control, I promise, I'll terminate her. I already got rid of Jake for you.

[E] I know, amore mio. I want that to be a promise. 

[J] It is. 

_[Retrieved text messages between Excella Gionne and an unidentifiable contact.]_

[E] This is her picture. I want her dead _{MMS file attached}_

[-] Her eyes are red.

[E] She's a BOW causing me problems. Can you get rid of her or not??

[-] Of course I can.

[-] It will be twice my normal rate, however. 

[-] She seems more dangerous than the regular BOW calls. 

[E] As am I, amico mio. I don't care what it costs, I just want her dead. 

[-] No need to get antsy. 

[-] Last known position?

[E] She was deployed to protect an arms dealer, Irving. It doesn't matter if Irving is collateral so long as she dies. 

[-] Around Kijuju?

[E] Si.

[-] I'll send kill confirmation within the next two weeks. 

[E] I won't hold my breath. 

\---

_[Retrieved messages between Julian Valentine and the same unidentifiable contact.]_

[-] She hired me just like you said she would.

[J] Oh, good. I won't feel so bad when she has to die later. 

[-] If I can be honest, though, whoever the hell you experimented on to make that, you better be careful. Gionne sent me pics and video of her in action, and I'm not really sure there would be anyone who could kill her. 

[J] Everybody around here keeps trying to tell me how to do my job. 

[-] I'm not telling you what to do, you can be crazy all you want. All I'm saying is that if you can't keep a leash on that beast, she'll tear apart anything in her way to come kill you.

[J] You seem pretty certain that she would. 

[-] Her eyes glow and she moves like a demon. Even BOWs don't pull off arms unless they have some pent up aggression.

[J] Noted.

[-] Oh, and just so you know, I won't be accepting any contract to kill her. I like my head where it is. 

[J] Uh-huh. As long as we're on the topic of things you can't do, is shutting up one of them?

[-] Then you wonder why you don't have any friends. 

[-] I'll let you know if Gionne contacts me again. 

[J] Thanks. 

[-] Don't thank me. I'm not coming to save you when this blows up.

[J] ...

\---

_[Retrieved messages between Julian Valentine's phone and the same unidentified contact.]_

[J] I'm surprised he came to you, of all people. 

[-] He wanted someone who could feasibly do the job to pass off to Gionne. By real contract was to ferret her out. 

[-] I'm glad you're in one piece. It's been some time since I've seen you. Wasn't the last time when you saved me in Beijing?

[J] Was it so long ago? I thought I saw you again after I left the army. 

[-] Maybe in passing, not on business.

[J] This isn't a business call either, my friend. 

[-] I know. In all seriousness, I'm glad to see you alive. 

[J] Julian doesn't delete his text histories and I can still read. 

[-] Oh, come now. You were always a demon in combat. And I told Valentine that he wouldn't be able to control you. 

[J] That is true. 

[-] I do take it that there's another reason you would call on me, other than our friendly contact. 

[J] Yes, there is. Tricell's lab in Edonia created a new strain of the Los Plagas, ones with a control mechanism. They sold it under the table to the Eastern Slav Republic's government, and from what I've been able to find, the government is using them against the insurgency. 

[-] So you want me to wade into a warzone. 

[J] Yes. More specifically, I want you to bring one of the Plagas back to the US, in the care of Doctor Rebecca Chambers at the Alexander Institute of Biotechnology. 

[-] This is a big ask.

[J] It's not an ask, it's a job. 

[-] You've been MIA for three years. How do you plan to pay for it?

[J] I have Valentine's phone, don't I? I'll send you the login and the bank, and you can have everything left to his name. 

[-] This is absolutely delicious. You're so malicious and deceptive. 

[-] I'll do it. 

[J] Thank you. 

[-] I look forward to seeing you in person again one day. I hope I look as good as you do in Kevlar when I'm over fifty too.

[J] It's genetics, my dear. You'll have to settle for your age being entirely unidentifiable until you're over sixty-five. 

[-] I suppose that's fair. We Asians do have the best skincare. 

[J] Bank: *********, account number: ********************, password: ************

[-] Pleasure doing business with you. 

[J] Until we meet again. -AW

[-] Until we meet again. -AW

* * *

* * *

_"I take it you finished reading it all."_

"Yeah." He wiped his mouth, the lingering taste of bile and bitter, bitter regret still lingering. "And I can't be alone in my own head right now.

_"Kay. Give me an hour. I'll come pick you up and we can get trashed at my place."_

"Thanks, Leon."

_"Not a problem, Chris. Bring a pair of sweats and a change of clothes. I don't have any you'd be able to borrow."_

"Got it. See you soon."

_"You too, buddy. You just gotta hold it together until I get there."_

"I think I can do that."

_"Alright. Be there in a bit. Bye."_

"Bye."


	5. AW-01 Samurai Edge

Despite having been over at Leon's with the express purpose of getting wasted, that wasn't what he did. Leon drank himself stupid and passed out, but Chris wasn't drunk enough to fall into that kind of stupor, nor could he sleep. All that kept cycling through his head was what he'd seen. It kept playing on loop, from the footage of an apparently thirteen year old Alberta escaping an Umbrella lab doubling as her home to seeing the video of her writhing and snarling, trying to overcome her mutation through sheer force of will. Not to mention he didn't know who the other AW was, though it was clear that it wasn't one of her brothers or sisters. It was someone else, someone she knew from her Black Ops days who even Umbrella and Tricell hadn't been aware that she knew. It was all spinning and getting tangled with his emotions, with his thoughts and his desires. It mingled with the strange grief that came from the very thought that Julian might have raped Alberta and then killed off the child. 

The more he thought, the angrier he got. 

The BSAA knew all about this shit. They had all these records for months before he got a hold of them, and some months more since he'd had to build up the courage to even open them. Resentment and loathing he'd never experienced before rose like bile in the back of throat, hot and acidic. He didn't even hate the bioterrorists he fought against this much, and he knew that he was walking a dangerous line here. He shouldn't hate the BSAA - he _i_ _s_ the BSAA - but there's this white-hot coal of betrayal that sits in the gap in his chest where his heart had once been. No bioterrorist had ever betrayed him the way the BSAA was now, even Julian. After all, Julian never really had been on their side. But the BSAA . . . 

He gets up from the couch he'd been laying on, finding a pad and paper in the dark living room and leaving a note for Leon, who he now owed three nights' worth of booze. He got dressed and called a cab, sitting in sullen silence both while he waited for it to show up and once he was in its backseat. When he walks into the empty, oppressive silence of their - _his_ \- apartment, he drops his overnight bag at the door. 

He wanders aimlessly into the void space, unthinkingly moving into the master bedroom. His eyes drift over the familiar furniture, and he goes passively to the lovely bay window. Glinting in the early morning sun and sitting innocently in its breakfast nook are Alberta's pistol and his dog tags. They sit together, entwined and shining in the first amber rays of dawn.

The coal in his chest flares and it engulfs nearly four years of anguish, agony, regret, resentment, yearning, loss, grief, desire, hope and love all at once, setting every inch of his skin on fire and narrowing his focus to the one thought his friends and sister have been trying to keep him away from:

_Fuck them all._

He spins around, redressing quickly in his BSAA uniform and slipping her pistol into his holster, his tags still dangling from it. His hands flex with the urge to lash out at something, but there's nothing here he wants to break. What he wants _isn't here_ , but that's okay. Julian Valentine couldn't stop him from getting her back, and neither would the fucking BSAA. He would burn the whole operation to the ground if he had to, he didn't give a _damn._

Wallet and keys in hand, he had too much energy to waste to wait for the elevator, running down the stairs and into the underground garage. He got into his truck, ignoring the sleek cobalt sports car that had been sitting there for four years, undisturbed. He threw it roughly into drive, every cell in his body itching for a fight, waiting anxiously to be challenged. 

He drove to the BSAA HQ without having to think about it, parking in his normal spot and throwing it into park. Some of the early morning guards seemed surprised to see him. One of the younger men permanently stationed in the barracks here paused in his jog, coming up to him. 

"Captain Burton told us not to expect you today." The young man - wait, this was one of Alberta's trainees, Nivans - says. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm just here on personal business."

The way he says it must set off alarms in Nivans' head, because the young man frowns and looks like he's going to try and get more information out of him. But Chris doesn't have this kind of time, and he's unwilling to waste his breath on anybody right now. 

He carries on into the building, marching with single-minded purpose to the back of the facility, where the labs are located. Other early risers, janitors and clerks move out his way instinctually, scurrying this way and that to avoid becoming the subject of his ire. When he gets back to the labs, he's gratified that no one bothered to change his access codes - it would have definitely drawn attention to have to rip the fucking door off its hinges - and he walks right back to the cell where he knows she's held. There's only two techs in there when he opens the door to the control room, which you have to walk through to get into her cell. They startle at his appearance, but only stare wordlessly at him as he looks in. 

She's laying on the floor, completely covered by a thick blanket with only one spindly-looking arm sticking out, the one attached to the IV of P67. She seems smaller than she should be, curled up under the blanket and completely unmoving. 

He swipes the closest tech's badge, finally earning a startled "Hey!", which he uses to open the door. He goes directly to her, kneeling down next to her and throwing off the blanket. The ire that had been keeping him warm washes cold with horror, then flares back up with inconsolable rage. 

Alberta is a skeleton covered in pale skin and topped with limp, brittle blonde hair. She's barely breathing, hardly looks like she has the strength to. Her clothes hang off her like curtains, clothes he _knows_ she would have never fit this time last year. She's so emaciated that even her already small breasts vanish under the loose, thin cloth of her shirt. He can see every rib she has, every knuckle and joint in her arms and legs. He can feel each knob of her spine when he pulls her up into his arms, see each ring of her throat when her head lolls back limply on his arm. Her face was already angular and sharp, but right now, she looks like a corpse, sunken and sallow. What's worse is that she weighs next to nothing. There's no goddamn reason a woman who's 6' 4" should _ever_ weigh less than a 5' 4" woman like Rebecca, let alone a force of nature and violence like Alberta. 

With a snarl, he rips the IV from her arm.

"C . . . hris?" He adjusts her so her head it supported by the crook of his elbow. She's managed to open her eyes, the fire there reduced to dwindling embers. "Have I died then?"

"No, I'm real." He replies, cupping her face. 

"Oh." Her eyes fall shut once more. "I'm glad I got to see you one last time. I'll die soon."

"Over my fucking dead body." He snarls, but she's used up what energy she'd managed to accumulate. He lifts her up and is troubled again by how easy it is. He opens the door again with the stolen key, tossing it unceremoniously back onto the desk. 

"Hey! You can't leave with her!" The tech who's card he stole says. 

He hikes her up so her head rests on his shoulder, cradling her against one side of his body and pulling her pistol with the other. "Wanna fucking bet?"

The tech immediately sits back down, but the one behind him pressed the silent alarm. He didn't care. Nothing mattered but Alberta, and he wouldn't let anybody take her from him ever again.

He left the labs, walking swiftly with the same purposeful determination he had upon entering. When he exits, he finds Nivans talking with Barry, who looks like he rushed to be here. At his exit, they both look over at him, then their eyes ricochet to the rail-thin facsimile of Alberta in his arms. 

"Sweet Mary, mother of God." Barry blasphemes, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. 

His hand flexes where it's still wrapped around her pistol, and his face hardens. "Get out of my way."

Barry's clearly torn - on one hand, this is the _last_ thing Chris should be doing; on the other hand, fucking _look at her_. Nivans, too, looks horrified and ill, his complexion paling a few shades. 

He doesn't wait for them to make up their minds, just walks over to his truck and opens the back doors, laying her down on the seats. She doesn't make a sound nor even seem to react to outside stimuli, and the rage that's keeping him together is slowly morphing into grievous concern. He gets into the driver's seat and peals out of the parking lot, leaving Barry and Nivans to deal with all the inevitably massive fallout from this decision. But he doesn't care, because they let this happen. They _chose_ to do this to a woman who would and _had_ laid her life down for what she believed was right. 

_Fuck them all_.

* * *

When he gets back to the apartment, he immediately lays Alberta down on her side of the bed. She sighs sweetly at the sensation of soft sheets and a comfortable mattress. He strips her out of the clothes she's in, tossing them to the side. She settles down easily, so he turns to locking down the premises. He turns off his phone and pulls out the cord for the old landline he never bothered to get rid of. He locks the front door to the apartment, then slides the three sets of metal bars across the middle, bolting them to the wall. There's nothing he can do about the windows, but he's also reasonably certain that they're not going to send a strike team. And if they do, he's survived a hell of a lot worse than whatever the BSAA can throw at him. 

He'll kill them all if he has to. 

Next, he sets to preparing water, electrolyte drinks and hearty smoothies mixed with some of his protein powder. She's going to need all the help she can get if she's ever going to recover. 

| | | 

"Look, I don't know what you want me to do. I can't lockpick bolted bars." Leon says, standing. He'd managed to remove the door's handle, only to find a solid metal bar in front of it. 

"We have to get in there!" Claire protests. 

"Then the only way will be through the walls or the windows." Leon deadpans. "I'm not entirely sure that anyone should really be in there anyway."

Claire scowled. "I need you on my side."

Leon crossed his arms. "I'm on Chris' side, where _you_ should be. You heard what Burton said. I don't give a shit if she's infected or what, that's no way for a human being to be treated. I can't imagine what it's like for Chris right now, trying to bring her back from the edge of death."

"Why are you agreeing with this lunacy?" She says, exasperated. 

Leon gives her a distinctly unimpressed scowl. "There's a dead Plaga attached to my spine, and Sherry's the G-virus on two legs. Just because Alberta's eyes glow doesn't mean she deserves a normal life any less than Sherry or I do. If you can't get behind that, then you may as well throw me to the wolves too, because that Plaga isn't coming out any time soon."

Claire averts her eyes with a sigh. "Sorry, I forgot about that."

"I know."

"Does it-?"

"There are days where I breathe too deeply and its spines dig into my lungs." Leon's expression is flat, but there's no give to his voice. He's gong to make her see it his way whether she wants to or not. "It never lets me forget how easy it was for someone to steal my autonomy and my life. And I was only under its control for a couple of hours."

Claire flinches like a gunshot went off. Alberta and Chris have been keenly aware of every second that's passed since she fell from the window, and there's nothing that will ever get that time back for them. 

"You wanna help your brother?" Leon speaks again. "Buy him food and leave it at his door. You can be sure that he's not going to be leaving this apartment any time soon, and I don't blame him. But I'm not going to help you any more."

"Okay." She can't meet his eyes. "I will."

Leon clasps her shoulder one last time. "He needs all the support he can get."

She nods, and Leon sees himself out. She takes one last look at his door, then takes her leave as well. 

| | | 

It's two weeks of carefully watering, feeding and bathing Alberta before she returns to any semblance of coherence. 

"You should have left me there." She says randomly one evening, startling him. "I was almost dead. Now I have to start all over again."

" _Fuck that_." He snaps. "You're never going back there."

"Chris-" She says his name like he's a particularly difficult child, but he overrules her. 

"No, I don't give a shit. You're here, with me, and you're not going anywhere else. The BSAA can kiss my ass - they'll have to kill me before they can get to you again."

She sighs. "This was the plan all along, Christopher. This is why I didn't want you to come back. This exact scenario."

"Yeah, well, your plan is shitty. I don't know what you'd thought I'd do when I found everything out."

She peers at him from the corner of her eye, assessing him. 

"Yeah, I know everything. I know about Project: WESKER, where you grew up. I know Umbrella was tracking you your whole life, waiting to steal you. I know about what experiments Julian ran on you." He softens and sits down next to her, cupping her face. "I know about Jake."

Her eyes wrench shut, an old wound tearing itself open. 

"I want you to be honest with me, Alberta. It's just yes or no."

"What?'

"To make Jake . . . did Julian or any of the other scientists rape you?"

Her eyes snap open again, meeting his. "No, no they didn't."

He breathes out a sigh of relief. "Good. Well, not _good_ , because Jake's . . . not around, but I'm glad they didn't do _that_."

"Julian had him killed. Terminated." Alberta says, like its tearing her apart inside. "You would have loved him - he inherited my blue eyes, but had this flaming red hair. He was such a sweet little boy, too. Stubborn as a mule and smart as a whip." Her next words are choked, tears spilling unbidden out of the corner of her eyes. "He loved to play with my hair."

Chris pulled back the blankets and got under them with her, pulling her into him and holding her close. She buried her face in his chest and refused to meet his gaze. "I'm so sorry, Al. I'm sorry I didn't get to you sooner. I'm so fucking sorry I can't kill Julian again."

"So am I." She sobs, weak fingers digging into his shoulders. "So am I."

| | | 

Ultimately, it takes a month for Alberta's body to bounce back. After that, she can move, exercise and eat as she pleases, and its only another few weeks before she gains back the mass she'd lost. 

"It's a side effect of the Tyrant." She explained, drinking straight protein powder in water. "It prioritizes maintaining muscle. Makes me a more efficient killer. Metabolism's a bitch to keep up with, though."

He scoffs. "Is that the excuse you used in the army for doing situps on the pullup bar?"

She smirks. "Oh, absolutely. I had the best arms in any of my units. I also happened to be taller than everyone except one Russian man who was 6' 8". He called me _Canada_ over the radio."

He frowned. "But you're American?"

She laughed. "Canada has the largest land mass, second only to Russia."

"Oh my God. That's so bad."

"That's what I told him." She smirked. "I called him Rasputin in retaliation, because I knew Braxton wouldn't be able to resist singing the song whenever he heard it. It got us into a couple of firefights in Romania, but it was entirely worth it."

"I bet." 

She looks down at the drink in her hand, an unappealing chalky beige mixture. "If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?"

"Always." The word is out of his mouth before he can even think about it. 

Her brow creases as she continues to watch the still liquid, her eyes brightening with her heightened emotions and clearly without her permission. "I told you not to come for me. I expressly asked you not to. And for quite some time, you did as I said."

"Al . . ." He sighs, but she shakes her head. 

"We're far past recrimination about that. What's done is done, on both our parts." Her mouth twists in a rueful smile. "What I want to know is, what changed your mind? What made you come?"

He settles back against the counter, crossing his arms and staring directly at her even if she continues to avoid eye contact with him. "BSAA Africa cleaned out the Kijuju facility. I asked Sheva to send me any information that pertained to you, was associated with you or even mentioned you. I expected to find the details of what Valentine did - making you a Tyrant, any of the missions he sent you on, data about the P30; stuff like that. What they managed to find was Valentine's records about your whole life. He had everything, from security footage of the house you grew up in to your redacted military portfolio. I can't say I ever expected to see what I was sent. It tore me apart, knowing that Umbrella had been the shadow chasing you your whole life."

She clearly has something she wants to say, but she waits patiently for him to continue. 

"If you're wondering, finding out that you were created by Umbrella doesn't change anything about my opinion of you or my love for you." Her eyes flare at his words and in the selfish privacy of his mind, it's one of the things he actually appreciates about the virus - she can't hide her feelings from him. "All of that information comfortably made me sick already, knowing how haunted you truly were and how well you handled everything all alone. But what really got to me was the fact that all of this? All of this pain and torment and injustice - the BSAA _knew_ about it. They knew about it long before I did. _And they kept you locked away_. They were willing to make a martyr of you, to let you hang for crimes you didn't commit." He took a deep breath. "As much as it had torn me apart, I was trying to respect your wish. I was _trying_. But this was something I couldn't abide. I just- I'm entirely incapable of letting an innocent person suffer if I can help it, and you're so much more than that. You're not just a casualty of Umbrella's game, you've been their victim from the start. The BSAA was willing to punish you for Umbrella's sins. I wasn't."

She sets aside her glass, finally meets his gaze and seems to find assurance of his honesty on his face. "Chris . . ."

"I'm not asking you to agree with what I've done, or what I think about this whole thing." He unfolds his arms, approaching her slowly and taking her hands in his. "But if I was given the chance to do this over, I would never let you go. Not a fucking chance."

"I'm nearly offended you think I'd let you throw away your life like that." She says, but the words are choked. 

"By the way this worked out, I don't think you'd be able to stop me either way." He couldn't help but grin. "You're a part of me, Alberta."

The breath she takes stutters through her, agonized like her air is mixed with glass shards. "So are you, Chris. You're my other half. I've never loved anyone like I love you."

"I know." He pulls back and her eyes flutter open, watching him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his dog tags. Without asking her, he opens the chain and reaches up, clasping it back around her neck. 

Her gaze flickers across his face and her body is tense, like she's caught between impulses. 

"Alberta," He murmurs in the scant space between them, "it's okay. You're allowed. Baby, _let go_."

All at once, she shatters in his hands. He grunts when his lower back hits the edge of the counter, her fingers already tangled in his hair. He barely has time to catch the breath she knocked out of him before her mouth covers his. She's plastered her body against his, any inhibitions she had left completely obliterated. 

"I can fight with the best of them," She says when she reefs his head back to bite down the thick column of his neck, "but I've never been good at resisting temptation."

"Then don't." He squats down a little, managing to wrap his hands around her thighs right where they meet her ass. With a grunt, he hoists her up and she doesn't hesitate to wrap her legs tightly around his waist. "I'm all yours. You can have whatever you want from me."

She makes a wounded little noise, taking a moment just to cling tightly to him as he moves them from the kitchen into their bedroom. He sits on the edge of the bed, nudging her back. She lets him go, bracketing his thighs with her own when he drops back onto the bed. It's a position he's taken so much, looking up at her as she straddles him, that's its natural to assume it. He's always been her subordinate, always taken her orders. It's not even something he questioned as part of their relationship dynamic. 

She slips off his shirt and takes her time just running the tips of her fingers along all the valleys between his abs, tracing the scars he's collected that she hasn't seen. When she slides her hands from his hips up to his shoulders, she does so with her eyes closed, memorizing his body by feel. When she opens them again with her slow exhale, they leap off her face they're so bright. She looks at him like he's her personal Rapture, like he can make or break her with a glance. Her fate and - more importantly - her heart is in his hands. She looms over him, blonde hair falling around her shoulders, with demonic eyes but to him, she's never looked more lost, more unsure of who and what she is. 

She takes a shuddering breath, her fingers tightening over his pectoral muscles. "Chris?"

"Anything you want, baby." He slides his hands under her shirt, holding onto her hips. 

"T-" She pauses and collects herself, fighting some internal battle. "Take care of me?"

All at once, it makes sense to him. 

Alberta has only ever had herself to depend on. Even in her team-oriented careers, she wound up in positions of leadership where others depended on her to have all of her shit together at all times. She's never fallen apart, never allowed anyone to have that much control over her. Even in Umbrella's Maine lab, she was resilient and independent, uncontainable. Dr. Wesker couldn't keep a hold of her as a child, and Valentine couldn't do it as an adult. Even her affection for Chris couldn't intercept her iron will. She's always been held together by the knowledge that no one would come for her, would rescue her. In their sex life, too, she had always moved to a dominant position, always ready to lead and overcome. But here, right now, she's been broken by her own capability, worn down by guilt and fear that she's never associated with herself. She has no enemy, no next steps; all there is here is her and him, and she's already shattered them both once. 

For once, she just doesn't want to be responsible. 

He rolls them over abruptly, her hair scattering out around her. Despite the surprise on her face, she just lays there and doesn't fight him, watches the way he adjusts to hover over her like the bear he is. "Whatever you want, sweetheart. I'm part of you - it's okay to surrender."

The last unconscious hint of tension leaves her. "Okay." She swallows, reaching up to run her knuckles along his cheek. "Okay."

"I'll take care of you." He presses in and kisses her, deep and long and slow. " _Always_."

She shudders under him and he sits back, manhandling her out of her shirt and unhooking her bra, tossing both articles aside. In the evening light, her skin catches bronze, smooth and unmarred. He wonders briefly if this is what she looked like as a Private in the army, so sweet and warm. 

"Can I do what I want with you?" He asks, cupping her breasts in his hands, too small to actually fill more than his palm. "Can I hold you however I want to?"

She lets the hands that had been idly tracing the veining in his arms fall onto the sheets. "Whatever you want. Make me yours, Chris. You're part of me - make me part of you."

He leans down to brush their noses together, one large hand running down the valley between her breasts and catching on the tags hanging there. He sways forward so the metal hanging around his neck clinks against it and he can't keep the smile from his lips. "Oh, darling, you already are. But I have no issue demonstrating that."

| | | 

It's late in the night, and the two of them rock together gently. 

They're on their sides, one of his hands wrapped around her throat, the other between her splayed thighs. One of his legs is tucked up right behind hers, and her other leg is hooked behind his knee, holding her open. Her left arm is reaching backwards, pulling him forward by the hip, while her right hand holds onto the forearm that has a hand around her neck. 

It's been a couple of hours since he was able to get hard, but that's not what this is about. That's not what any of this is about. 

She twitches and whimpers in overstimulation, her grip weak and trembling. The hand around her throat doesn't do much more than hold her in place, but she finds the weight and restriction oddly comforting. Maybe because its from him, in the safety of their own apartment, in the privacy of this moment. He will never use this weakness against her, takes her submission to him for the harrowing display of trust that it actually is, and she knows that he'll be there to catch her no matter how strong she is. 

"That's right." He nips at her neck, where there would be a blue-black motley of bruises if the Tyrant weren't so efficient. "You can go again, can't you, sweetheart?"

She wants to collapse and pass out, to succumb to sleep and exhaustion. But his fingers circling her clit won't let her rest, won't let her come down. 

"I know you have one last one in you." He promises darkly, tilting her head back to mouth at her jaw. "One more, baby, then you can come down."

"I'm going to break." She wheezes, completely lost in this wilderness of pleasure. Chris hasn't allowed her the afterglow of even one orgasm tonight, working her right through the overstimulation. She would have never guessed that the senses the Tyrant enhanced in her for combat would work overtime where sexual stimulation was involved, but Chris had spotted the heightened sensitivity right away, and he was making her pay for it. 

"You can do it." His fingers tighten nominally around her throat. "You're _going to_."

The fine tremble in her thighs picks up, her whole body caught between the need to stay and flee. But Chris doesn't give her the choice, and that knowledge that he's in charge, that he's calling the shots, that she surrendered to him for this exact purpose keeps her firmly under his command. If he says she's going to, she will. 

In her haze, she wonders if this is why he's always been so willing to be under her - how unqualified the pleasure is when you're not responsible for making sure you stay inside your own body. She doesn't have long to dwell on that errant thought, because he abruptly twists his fingers and every part of her gives out all at once. 

"So good, Alberta." He breathes, stroking down her flanks like an antsy horse, gentling her back to coherent awareness. "You've been so good for me. I love you so much."

"Love you." She manages in an exhausted puff of air, eyes slipping shut without her permission. She can't keep awake after that, and Chris doesn't wake her. He manhandles her into a better position to sleep and she doesn't react. He gets up, shaky himself, and comes back with a damp facecloth. He gently cleans between her thighs, wiping away the remains of earlier sessions and her own slick. They'll both definitely need a shower in the morning, long ones too, but it'll be so worth it. He doesn't know if he - or anyone else, for that matter - has ever seen her so completely drained. 

He tosses the cloth to the side, because fuck it, and slides into bed beside her, snuggling close and enjoying the slow rise and fall of her chest. 

The last few weeks while she's been recovering have been hard in their own right, with their former intimacy being so close, yet so far from reach. Of course, he would never have pushed the issue if she never felt comfortable sharing her body with him ever again, but he's glad she wants to. 

He runs his fingers through her hair, pulling it up and above them on the pillow. "I'm never letting you go again."

She sighs and he pulls her tighter, finally letting himself fall into slumber with her.

* * *

The knock at the door was a long time coming, and yet Chris is surprised it didn't come sooner. 

With Alberta recovered and more than capable of taking care of herself (and, in all likely reality, him as well) he'd undone all the precautions. It had been quite the surprise to find a grocery bag with his doorhandle in it and a note from signed by Leon that just said _Bill Claire for damages_. 

When he opened the door, it was actually the Nivans kid standing there. The kid nods stiffly, like this is far from his ideal assignment. "Sir."

"Piers." Alberta appears at his shoulder, and Nivans' eyes widen comically. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Commander?" He asks, blindsided. He shakes his head. "Uh, I was sent by the Brass."

She raises an eyebrow. "It would have been an overconfident move to send one person to arrest me _before_ I became a superweapon."

Piers shakes his head. "No ma'am. That's not what I'm here for." He cracks a bashful grin. "Truth be told, there's no threat of court martial or dismissal that would make me take that mission anyway."

She assesses the young man for a long moment, her molten eyes not giving anything away, before she nudges Chris' back with the back of her hand. "Come in, then. I assume there's going to be a _conversation_."

Piers nods his thanks when he comes in. He's not in full tack, but he is in uniform, so this is business, not pleasure. Chris closes the door behind him and follows him into the living room, where Alberta has commandeered one end of the couch and is sitting with one arm thrown over the back and her legs crossed. Chris sits next to her and Piers takes a seat on the loveseat across from them. 

"I've been sent by the upper echelons of the BSAA with an offer." Piers says, laying a manila envelope on the coffee table between them. It makes a weighty sound when its set down. "They probably wouldn't want me to tell you, but when rumour started to fly around that they were going to gear up an assault team, most of the Captains and Commanders threw a fit. Those who knew you guys flat out refused to do it, and even those that don't said there was no way they were leading their teams against the BSAA's own. The Majors and Colonels weren't fans of the proposals either. It took a lot of cajoling, but with so much of the force actively against it . . . They weren't really looking to face a mutiny, especially over only two people."

Alberta hums. "I can imagine not many were keen to test me, either. My results have been classified, but the report about Kijuju was not."

"Yeah, that too." Piers looks down at his hands, folded together between his legs. "And to be honest, a lot of us were trained by you, Commander. Even if the upper ranks were gung-ho, they would have never found the volunteers. I certainly wouldn't have."

"I'm pleased it didn't have to come to that." She gestures to the envelope. "I assume."

Piers nods. "Yeah, no. A big problem they had was the issue of your personhood, Commander."

"Naturally. And I assume there is no legal recourse."

Piers winces. "Not yet. Unlike the DSO case with Miss Birkin, you were never administered a vaccine, and your augmentation is so extensive."

"I figured. Am I correct in assuming Captain Burton and Doctor Chambers had something to do with the workaround?"

"Yeah. And a man from the DSO - Agent Kennedy, I think? Regardless, what the BSAA came up with was this offer." He pushes the envelope closer. "If you agree, you'll return to the BSAA actively, but without a rank in the structure. You'll be marked a _Special Asset_ , and will be permanently attached to Captain Redfield's team. The stipulation is that they're not going to _assign_ members to your team. It's on a volunteer-only basis, and anyone can sign on or abandon the team at any time."

She cocks her head. "Surprisingly fair. I anticipated they would offer me a leash and expect me to be grateful."

"Well, they kind of are." Piers shrugs uncomfortably. "Without becoming the Special Asset, they can't offer you any protection or any measure of personhood. it kind of is an offer they expect you to accept without question."

"I'm sure they do." Alberta cracks a fearsome grin. "And they'd be right."

"You're going to go back?" Chris bursts out, surprised. 

"Of course. I was ready to die for the BSAA's cause, and that hasn't changed." She picks up the contract and tosses it back to Piers. "What I am not going to do is sign something they wrote up without me there."

Piers cocks his head like a lost puppy.

"I'd appreciate it if you informed the Brass I'll be at HQ tomorrow morning at eight am in conference room B-12. I expect them promptly, prepared to discuss the exact terms of my re-engagement and Chris' inevitably pending punishment. I look forward to their full cooperation."

Piers manages a hysterical laugh. "I don't know why I didn't expect this, but I totally should have. I'll pass on the message, Commander."

"I believe my new rank is Special Asset, is it not?" She chuckles. "'Wesker' will be fine from here on out, Piers."

"Right." Piers takes the envelope with a grin. "I guess I'll see you on base tomorrow morning."

"As ever."

| | | 

When the Brass walk into the conference room they were directed to by Lieutenant Nivans, they are a little unnerved by her sitting there. She's wearing blacked-out sunglasses, a tight-fitting black shirt and black cargos tucked into combat boots. As ever, she looks meticulous and her physical strength broadcasts itself. They know that behind those lenses are the molten eyes of a BOW, but behind those eyes is the sharp and impregnable mind of Alberta Wesker. No matter what form she takes, she's always been a formidable enemy, and they'd been hoping she would take the out for what it was. 

"Gentlemen." She says, but doesn't stand. She commands the room without trying, and it rankles them, but they don't say anything. She was dangerous before, so what she is now . . . well. "Take a seat."

They do as she says. 

"I have spent my entire adult life in public service." She opens. "And I have no intention to stop now. I believe more strongly than ever in the mission of the BSAA, and I want to rejoin active combat. From what Lieutenant Nivans informed me of the contract yesterday, it sounds more or less amenable."

"Than why didn't you sign it?"

"I have been unpersoned - my signature means nothing. But you knew this." She manages to stare through each of them in turn without being able to see her eyes. "So, what we're going to establish here today isn't my personal circumstance, but what the label of Special Asset will entail, and when we decide on that, you're going to sign off. From there, I will acquiesce to your offer and rejoin the force proper."

"You want us to create another rank for you?" One of the generals sputters.

"As I said, my own autonomy is null. I can't be legally bound because I'm not _human_." She stresses, steepling her fingers in front of her. "What I _am_ is a sentient super bioweapon, and one that wants to be on your side. In order for the protections you offered me to be legally enforceable is if they're already standing. That's my only path to any measure of personhood, and only on my status as a Special Asset does my signature mean anything. So, we're going to negotiate what this title will mean for me, draft the amendment to the rank structure - or, more accurately, where I fit outside of it - and then you'll sign off on it. Once that's completed, I'm going to tell you that my acceptance hinges on the dismissal of my charges you've brought against Captain Christopher Redfield. Once you agree - in writing - to the dismissal, then I'll sign on and we can all leave full of sunshine and rainbows."

"You can't be serious." Another general rounds on her. "You think you can walk in here like you have all the cards? Your very existence hinges on what we allow you to be!"

"My _personhood_ and my _survival_ are very different entities." She corrects, ice in her tone. "Should what I require of you _not_ be met, both myself and Captain Redfield will vanish. Whether you believe you'll be able to catch us is none of my concern, because you _won't_. I suggest we stay civil and cooperative, since it would be a shame for the BSAA to lose an opportunity to acquire an asset like this and I would hate to see the backlash you would face from your superiors due to your failure to even _find_ two measly people."

The general sits back down. 

"Good. I'm glad we're in agreement. Now, shall we to business, or does anyone else have feelings they need to air?"

Silence met her, though the glares were less subtle. 

"Wonderful. Now, before we move onto field deployment, I want a definition for who and/or what makes up a candidate for Special Asset."

| | |

Despite having been joined by Barry and Piers some hours in, Chris can't help but pace. It is late in the afternoon and Alberta has yet to come out of the building. She told him - _promised_ him - that she wouldn't submit to their needling again, and that if need be, she would fight her way out. He doesn't think she would lie to him, but he also doesn't put it passed her to feel some semblance of guilt having to betray an organization she would have readily died for less than three months ago. He doesn't think, either, that the BSAA actually has the means to subdue or kill her, even with their extensive and relentless research of her the last nine months. 

It's nearly five in the evening when the front doors open to where Chris has kept his vigil and Alberta saunters out, easy as you please. He rushes to her, his nerves ablaze, and stops just short of wrapping her in a hug. She's always been prickly about public affection, and with the new advancement in their relationship, he's sure she's even more private now. 

"So?" He asks, unable to contain his eagerness. "How did it go?"

"I am more than satisfied." She cracks a wicked smirk. "Congratulations are in order, Captain Redfield. It looks as though all pending charges concerning your mutiny have been dropped. Your rank and position have been reinstated. They did wish for me to pass on that your Alpha Team will be made up exclusively of volunteers, however, because you will be joined by the BSAA's first Special Asset," She flicks her pistol out of its holster and spins it in her palm, the S.T.A.R.S. embossed stock of the gun glinting in the evening light, "AW-01 Samurai Edge."

Barry whistles low, impressed by her even now. "Damn. How do you pull this shit out of your ass?"

"I don't." She admonishes playfully. "I'm a natural born tactician and incredibly menacing. There's nothing lucky or chancing about it."

"I'm just glad you like me." Barry scrubs his face with his hands, his own well-concealed anxious nerves falling away. "If only I'd have known what S.T.A.R.S. would lead me to . . . "

"Indeed." She hums, re-holstering her pistol. "I feel much the same way."

"Heh, yeah, I guess so." Barry pushes off the half-wall he'd been resting on, walking over and clapping her on the shoulder. "Well, I'm glad you're here to stay. Crazy old bitch."

"I certainly hope you weren't expecting any less of me. I'd be incredibly disappointed."

Barry shakes his head but has no words left. He pats her shoulder once more. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"You as well, Captain Burton." She nods. 

"I'm glad you're good to go, too." Piers says, approaching much more shyly. Chris is fairly certain Alberta is something of a hero in the kid's eyes - resilient and commanding right to the bitter end, completely and utterly unstoppable. "I plan on volunteering for Captain Redfield's Alpha team, when they get it all squared away."

Alberta's voice softens, humbled. "I look forward to working with you, Lieutenant Nivans. I'm certain you'll be an invaluable soldier."

He beams with the kind of brightness children get when their parent compliments them on their good work. "Thank you, Commander."

"I'm not a Commander any longer." She gently reminds him. "Simply 'Wesker' will do."

"Right, right. Sorry." He's still beaming. "So, uh, I guess I'll see you when the rosters are up?"

"It would be my pleasure."

The kid ducks his head bashfully, turning away with a little wave and a smile. 

"I can't believe you managed it." Chris says, still a little stunned. "You're incredible."

Alberta grins, reaching up to cup his jaw and run her gloved thumb over his bottom lip. "How about a reward for my diligence, hmm? I can think of something I want."

He laughs, his chest light and his joy free for the first time in _years_. "Anything."


End file.
